Desmond Morris, 98, Dies; Explored Humans' Animal Instincts in 'The Naked Ape' [View all]

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Desmond Morris, 98, Dies; Explored Humans’ Animal Instincts in ‘The Naked Ape’

An English zoologist, he wrote an immensely popular 1967 book arguing that ancient genes, shared with apes, shape our lives. Objections in the scientific world ensued.


Desmond Morris in 1956 with the chimpanzees Congo and Charlie on the show “Zoo Time,” a Granada Television series he hosted about animals at the London Zoo. Desmond Morris Collection/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images

By Douglas Martin
April 20, 2026

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 on Sunday near Dublin. He was 98. ... His death, at a hospital in the town of Naas, was confirmed by his son, Jason Morris.

In a career that included writing more than four dozen books and 50 scientific papers and presenting 700 television episodes, Dr. Morris used observational powers that he had honed as a zookeeper to study the ways of humans as well as those of animals. His “The Naked Ape: A Zoologist’s Study of the Human Animal,” which sold more than 20 million copies and was translated into 23 languages, argued that ancient genes, shared with apes, shape human behavior.

Dr. 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. ... “To make sex sexier,” he said.

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Anthropologists said Dr. Morris ignored culture. Linguists said he discounted language. Biologists said he omitted traits that did not further his argument. One Long Island school district banned the book. And opponents of the theory of evolution condemned the book in full.


Dr. Morris’s 1967 book sold more than 20 million copies and was translated into 23 languages. His prolific output helped popularize the study of animal behavior and was sometimes likened to Carl Sagan’s work in astronomy. McGraw-Hill

The paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson, assessing “The Naked Ape” in The New York Times Book Review, questioned Dr. Morris’s basic hypothesis; he argued that after humans diverged from apes in evolutionary history, they could no longer be considered a species of ape. Some of the book’s assertions, Dr. Simpson wrote, were “at their best dubious and at their worst, ludicrous.”

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Dr. Morris at his studio in Oxford in 2018. He wrote prolifically well into his later years, including books about dogs, cats, horses and soccer players. David Parker/Alamy

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Dr. Morris’s ideas were novel and memorable, if not always proven. One, in “The Naked Man” (2008), was his explanation for why women are shorter on average than men: They can lie with their noses near their partners’ armpits, he said. The pheromones they thus inhale relax them during lovemaking and, he maintained, trigger ovulation.

Ash Wu and Charlotte Dulany contributed reporting.