Richard Zusi

Richard Laurence Zusi (born January 27, 1930 in Winchester , Massachusetts ) is an American ornithologist. His main research interests are the anatomy, behavior, evolution and classification of birds. He is one of the leading experts in the field of the functional anatomy of birds, in particular the mechanics of the bird's jaw and the development of structural complexes.

Life

Zusi grew up in Toronto . In 1951 he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University and in 1953 a Master of Science from the University of Michigan . In 1959 he finished his zoology studies at the same university with a Ph.D. From 1958 to 1963 he taught at the University of Maine . In 1963 he was hired by Philip Strong Humphrey (1926-2009) for the bird department of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC . Zusi was mainly responsible for the development of the bird skeletons and the collections preserved in liquid. His work "World Inventory of Avian Skeletal Specimens" from 1982 was one of the first and most extensive efforts to inventory a certain biological resource in a systematic collection. In 1986 a revised edition appeared.

Zusi has made numerous bird collecting excursions to Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Dominica, Iceland and many areas of the United States and Canada. He was largely active on the committees, exhibits, and administration of the Smithsonian Institution , particularly the zoo's research committee that planned the construction of the research building at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park . He also directed the design of 17 display cases in the Smithsonian Institution's Osteology Hall of Bones and was the senior curator of the Roger Tory Peterson Exhibition. Zusi was a member of numerous doctoral committees. In 1971 he was elected a Fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union . He had an office in the bird department of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and worked with Bradley C. Livezey on a National Science Foundation- funded study of the morphological variation and phylogenetic relationships between bird orders. In 1994 Zusi retired.

Zusi's most important writings include A functional and evolutionary analysis of rhynchokinesis in birds (Smithsonian Institution, 1984), A feeding adaptation of the jaw articulation in new world jays (Corvidae) (Auk 104 (4), 1987) and Patterns of diversity in the avian skull (University Chicago Press, 1993). He was also a co-author and illustrator of The Preliminary Field Guide to the Birds of the Indian Ocean (Smithsonian, 1963).

literature

• Matthew C. Perry (Ed.): The Washington Biologists' Field Club: Its Members and its History (1900-2006) . Washington Biologists' Field Club, Washington, DC 2007, ISBN 978-0-615-16259-1 , pp. 295-296 ( usgs.gov [PDF]).