Giraffe researcher Anne Innis Dagg received belated recognition for her seminal work

In 1956, 23-year-old Anne Innis finished her master’s degree in genetics and boarded a boat alone to South Africa, notebook in hand, to study giraffes. She had loved the animals ever since seeing one at a zoo as a child.She organized the trip herself without funding or official backing, and once there she spent up to 10 hours a day in the field for several months, observing how a group of 95 giraffes ate, moved and socialized. She stayed at a remote, 62,000-acre ranch, driving around by herself in a beat-up Ford Prefect.