Desmond Morris, the British zoologist, bestselling author and television presenter whose work brought animal behaviour to millions of viewers and readers around the world, died on Sunday at the age of 98. His son Jason confirmed the death, paying tribute to a man he described as having lived "a lifetime of exploration, curiosity and creativity." Morris, he said, was still writing and painting right up until his final days.
Born in Wiltshire, in southern England, in 1928, Morris served two years of national service before studying zoology at the University of Birmingham and completing a doctorate in animal behaviour at the University of Oxford. He became curator of mammals at London Zoo in 1959, a post he held for eight years, and rose to public prominence as the face of Zoo Time, a Granada nature series for ITV that ran from 1956 to 1967 and explored animal behaviour through experts and zoo staff. Like his contemporary David Attenborough, Morris recognised television as a powerful tool for bringing zoology to a broad public audience.
His 1967 book The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal became an international bestseller, selling more than ten million copies and being translated into dozens of languages. Its central argument — that human behaviour and its evolution are best understood as animal behaviour — was both provocative and widely influential. Morris followed it with a series of companion works including The Human Zoo (1969) and Manwatching (1977), and over his career contributed to more than 90 titles.
Morris was also a prolific surrealist painter, sometimes working until four in the morning, and credited his deep knowledge of the natural world as an indirect influence on his art. In 1950 he exhibited his work alongside the Spanish master Joan Miró. He hosted exhibitions exploring the intersection of art and animal behaviour, including one at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 1957 that showcased paintings created by chimpanzees. A 2017 BBC documentary, The Secret Surrealist, examined this lesser-known side of his life.
In his final years Morris continued to paint and write, and told the Guardian last year that one of his 1948 paintings had sold for more than £50,000 — a sale he found bittersweet, as he had hoped to buy it back himself. His son remembered him as "a great man and an even better father and grandfather."