Background
Durrant, Stephen David was born on October 11, 1902 in Salt Lake City. Son of Stephen Thomas and Martha (Harman) Durrant.
Durrant, Stephen David was born on October 11, 1902 in Salt Lake City. Son of Stephen Thomas and Martha (Harman) Durrant.
Student Weber College, 1925-1926. Bachelor of Arts, Univercity Utah, 1929, Master of Arts, 1931. Student of University Minnesota, 1931-1932, University of California, Berkeley, 1933, 38-39.
Doctor of Philosophy, University Kansas, 1950.
The "foremost mammalogist in Utah," he was professor of zoology at the University of Utah for over 40 years. After his return, he enrolled in the University of Utah, earning an Bachelor of Arts in French in 1929. He stayed at the University of Utah for graduate school, pursuing zoology and earning a Master of Surgery under Ralph V. Chamberlin in 1931.
After pursuing doctoral research first at the University of Minnesota, then University of California, Berkeley, and working several jobs while raising a family, he received his Doctor of Philosophy in 1950 from the University of Kansas.
Over the course of his career he described 37 new subspecies or races of assorted small mammals, including gophers, mice, kangaroo rats, beavers, and pikas. 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, promotes reproductive isolation and subsequent speciation or subspeciation.
(Title: Mammals of Utah : Taxonomy and Distribution Autho...)
(Pp. 549, 91 text-figures. Publisher's printed gray wrappe...)
Member Wildlife Society, Society Systemic Zoology (president Pacific section 1965), Biological Society Washington, American Association of University Professors, Utah Academy Arts, Science and Letters, American Society Mammalogists (director 1950-1955, president 1961-1962, honorary. Member), Sigma Xi, Phi Sigma, Phi Kappa Phi.
Married Sylvia Jane Burt, December 21, 1933. Children: Sue Marilynn, Stephen Carl.