In 1959, when Schaller was only 26, he traveled to Central Africa to study and live with the mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) of the Virunga Volcanoes [REF].
The American zoologist Dian Fossey, with assistance from the National Geographic society and Louis Leakey, followed Schaller's ground-breaking field research on mountain gorillas in the Virungas [REF].