Richard D. Alexander

Richard D. Alexander (born 1930) is an Emeritus Professor and Emeritus Curator of Insects at the Museum of Zoology of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Prof. Alexander's scientific pursuits integrate the fields of systematics, ecology, evolution, natural history and behaviour; the salient organisms in his research are equally wide-ranging, from the orthopterans (grasshoppers, katydids and crickets) and cicadidae (cicadas) to vertebrates: dogs, horses, and primates, including humans.

Richard D. Alexander obtained an associate of arts degree from Blackburn College (Carlinville, Illinois) in 1948, a bachelor of science in education (biology) and a PhD from Ohio State University in 1956. Dr. Alexander taught for over 40 years two graduate courses in alternate fall semesters: evolutionary ecology and evolution and behaviour; during these semesters he dedicated all his time to prepare his lecture materials — fresh and up-to-date every year — which included many a time novel, provocative ideas from his own students and university colleagues; amongst which Prof. Donald W. Tinkle, curator of herpetology at the UMMZ and evolutionary biologist, was very prominent until his death in 1980. His course lectures were perhaps the most popular in the schools of natural sciences and natural resources at the university and were often attended by other faculty members and visiting students including many from the social sciences (anthropology, geography, sociology, psychology, etcetera).

In 1974 he created a detailed model for a eusocial vertebrate, having no idea that a mammal with these characteristics actually existed. It turned out that his hypothetical eusocial rodent was a "perfect description" of the naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber).

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