Desmond Morris, an English zoologist "who used observation, logic and insight to contend in his immensely popular 1967 book, The Naked Ape, that humanity, stripped of civilized veneer, is just another species of ape," died April 19, the New York Times reported. He was 98. In addition to writing more than four dozen books and 50 scientific papers, Morris presented 700 TV episodes, using "observational powers that he had honed as a zookeeper to study the ways of humans as well as those of animals."
The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal sold more than 20 million copies and was translated into 23 languages. It argued that ancient genes, shared with apes, shape human behavior. Morris "offered new interpretations of basic human functions like sleeping, fighting, mating and child-rearing. He noted that humans had evolved not only the biggest brains among primates but also the biggest penises, compared to body size. He said this was one of many sexual adaptations that keep couples sufficiently interested to stay together," the Times wrote.
"To make sex sexier," he said.
When readers objected to some of his claims, Morris responded that The Naked Ape was "deliberately insulting." As he observed in the book, "Our climb to the top has been a get-rich-quick story, and like all nouveaux riches, we are very sensitive about our background. We are also in constant danger of betraying it."
Although critics challenged some of his theories about apes and humans, the field gained increased credibility in 1971 when Jane Goodall published In the Shadow of Man. Since then, "social biology, the explication of behavior in an evolutionary context, has grown in importance, even as debates over interpretations have flared," the Times noted.
"If I am honest, it is a struggle I have never fully resolved, the 'ham' and the academic in me doing battle with one another, with first one, then the other, getting the upper hand," Morris wrote in Animal Days (1979), one of three memoirs.
His many books include The Human Zoo (1969); Patterns of Reproductive Behavior (1970); Intimate Behaviour (1971); Amazing Baby: The Amazing Story of the First Two Years of Life (2008); The Naked Man (2008); Postures: Body Language in Art (2019); The British Surrealists (2022); and 101 Surrealists (2024)
As a child, Morris acquired an interest in art after using a great-grandfather's microscope and set of slides, which inspired him to draw and paint patterns based on the shapes of microorganisms. By the early 1950s, he was selling his surrealist paintings in London and Belgium and had directed two surrealist films.
Morris's first job after attending the University of Oxford was hosting Zoo Time, a Granada Television series on animals in the London Zoo. He became curator of mammals at the Zoo in 1959. During the 1960s, he wrote several nature books, including three with his wife, Ramona (Baulch) Morris.
Desmond Morris spent four weeks writing The Naked Ape, "racing to pay for a new house," the Times noted, adding that "as huge profits almost immediately materialized, he moved to the Mediterranean island nation of Malta in 1968, in part to avoid British taxes.... When the money ran out, Dr. Morris returned to Oxford to do more research.... He churned out book after book, many of which were very popular--not least his quasi-scholarly guided tours, one for each sex, to the erogenous precincts of the human body." Other titles dealt with dogs, cats, horses, and soccer players. At 90, he was still exploring the art world with The Lives of the Surrealists (2018).