Richard W. Thorington Jr., Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Richard W. Thorington Jr.

American zoologist and curator

Date of Birth: 24-Dec-1937

Place of Birth: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Date of Death: 24-Feb-2017

Profession: zoologist, curator

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn


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About Richard W. Thorington Jr.

  • Richard Wainwright "Thor" Thorington Jr.
  • (December 24, 1937 - February 24, 2017) was an American zoologist who made seminal contributions to mammalogy and evolutionary biology..
  • He was known especially for his expertise on squirrels.
  • After preparatory school at the Haverford School, he received the A.B.
  • in biology from Princeton University in 1959 followed by the M.A.
  • in 1963 and Ph.D.
  • in 1964, both from Harvard University.
  • His doctoral dissertation, supervised by Ernst Mayr, was entitled The biology of rodent tails: A Study of form and function.
  • On completing his doctorate he took a position as primatologist with Harvard's Regional Primate Center, in which capacity he studied monkeys in Brazil, Colombia, and Panama.
  • In 1969 he moved to the Smithsonian Institution as a curator of mammals, where he remained until his retirement in 2009.
  • From 1987 until 1992 he served as chair of the department of vertebrate zoology. In the late 1970s he developed Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome, which ultimately left him a quadriplegic.
  • As a result, he shifted his research to squirrels.
  • He carried out field research in North America, India, and Southeast Asia.
  • As his mobility deteriorated he shifted his focus to museum studies of systematics and anatomy, using the Smithsonian's collection of over 30,000 specimens of squirrels.
  • In addition to numerous technical publications, he co-authored the book Squirrels of the World, a profusely illustrated, encyclopedic treatment of all 285 known species of squirrel.Thorington was a member of the American Society of Mammalogists.
  • The oldest known fossil squirrel species, Hesperopetes thoringtoni, is named in his honor.

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