Stephen David Durrant (October 11, 1902 – November 11, 1975) was an American mammalogist from

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Salt ...

and past president of the

American Society of Mammalogists The American Society of Mammalogists (ASM) was founded in 1919. Its primary purpose is to encourage the study of mammal A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the Class (biology), class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence ...

known for his work with pocket gophers of the genus '' Thomomys'' and other rodents of the

Great Basin The Great Basin () is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets to the ocean, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja Californi ...

. The "foremost mammalogist in Utah," he was professor of zoology at the

University of Utah The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public university, public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (Book of Mormon), Deseret by the General A ...

for over 40 years. Born October 11, 1902, Durant served as a

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

for

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Restorationism, restorationist Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, denomination and the ...

(LDS Church) in Switzerland after high school. After his return, he enrolled in the

, earning an A.B. in French in 1929. He stayed at the University of Utah for graduate school, pursuing zoology and earning a M.S. under Ralph V. Chamberlin in 1931. After pursuing doctoral research first at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

, then

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, and working several jobs while raising a family, he received his Ph.D. in 1950 from the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

. Over the course of his career he described 37 new

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

or races of assorted small mammals, including gophers, mice, kangaroo rats, beavers, and picas. He died from lung cancer on November 11, 1975. Durrant's 1952 book ''Mammals of Utah: Taxonomy and Distribution'' presented taxonomic synopses of 247 species and subspecies of Utah mammals, as well as Durrant's explanations for the origins of such diversity: largely that the geographic and hydrological history of the region, especially the prehistoric

Lake Bonneville Lake Bonneville was the largest Late Pleistocene paleolake in the Great Basin of western North America. It was a pluvial lake that formed in response to an increase in precipitation and a decrease in evaporation as a result of cooler temperatur ...

, promotes

reproductive isolation The mechanisms of reproductive isolation are a collection of evolutionary mechanisms, ethology, behaviors and physiology, physiological processes critical for speciation. They prevent members of different species from producing offspring, or ensu ...

and subsequent

speciation Speciation is the evolutionary process by which populations evolve to become distinct species. The biologist Orator F. Cook coined the term in 1906 for cladogenesis, the splitting of lineages, as opposed to anagenesis, phyletic evolution within ...

or sub-speciation.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Durrant, Stephen David 1902 births 1975 deaths American mammalogists Scientists from Salt Lake City American Mormon missionaries in Switzerland University of Utah faculty University of Utah alumni University of Kansas alumni 20th-century American zoologists Latter Day Saints from Utah Presidents of the American Society of Mammalogists