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Alison Jolly (born Alison Bishop: May 9, 1937 – February 6, 2014) was an American primate known for her studies of lemur. She wrote several books for both popular and scientific audiences and conducted extensive fieldwork in Madagascar, primarily at the Berenty Reserve.
Jolly was also the first scientist to identify and propose female dominance in a primate society. She also played an important roll in arguing for the central importance of social behavior in the evolution of primate intelligence.
Under her maiden name, she first published "Control of the Hand in Lower Primates" in 1962. Jolly began studying lemur behavior at Berenty Reserve in 1963. In a 1984 study, she suggested that the female prosimians she observed may dominate males — becoming the first scientist to identify female dominance. As early as 1966, she argued for the central importance of social behavior in the evoluation of primate intelligence, a position that others supported and expanded upon.
She encouraged field studies that contributed to knowledge about Malagasy wildlife and advised many researchers; she briefed Jane Wilson-Howarth and colleagues before their first expedition to Madagascar in 1981. Since 1990, Jolly had returned for every birthing season to carry out research assisted by student volunteers. She focused on ring-tailed lemur demography, ranging, and especially inter-troop and territorial behavior, in the context of the fivefold difference in population density from front to back of the reserve.
Her scientific books include Lemur Behavior: A Madagascar Field Study, The Evolution of Primate Behavior and Lucy's Legacy: Sex and Intelligence in Human Evolution. Her non-technical works include Madagascar: A World Out of Time and Lords & Lemurs: Mad Scientists, Kings With Spears, and the Survival of Diversity in Madagascar. She also wrote numerous articles for consumer magazines and scientific journals.
Jolly was the author of two series of children's books—The Ako Books and The Fiddle Stories. In 2005, she published the first story in the series of Ako Books. The purpose of this series of books is to teach to children around the world about the different types of lemurs and their critical habitats in Madagascar.
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