Richard D. Alexander was an American zoologist who was a professor at the University of Michigan and curator at the university's museum of zoology of in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His scientific pursuits integrated the fields of systematics, ecology, evolution, natural history and behaviour. The salient organisms in his research are wide-ranging, from the orthopterans and cicadidae to vertebrates: dogs, horses, and primates, including humans.
Biography
Alexander obtained an associate of arts degree from Blackburn College in 1948, a bachelor of science in education and a PhD from Ohio State University in 1956. He joined the University of Michigan faculty in 1957. He was the Donald Ward Tinkle Professor of Evolutionary Biology from 1984–89 and was named the Theodore H. Hubbell Distinguished University Professor of Evolutionary Biology in 1989. He served as director of the Museum of Zoology from 1993–98. 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. 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.
Publications
Alexander's publications related to the evolution of behaviour and its bearing on human nature. After his retirement in 2000, he devoted most of his time to his horse farm, where he bred, reined, trained and rode them.
How Did Humans Evolve? Reflections on the Uniquely Unique Species. University of Michigan Museum of Zoology Special Publication 1:1-38. 1990
Biological considerations in the analysis of morality. In: M. H. and D. V. Nitecki. Evolutionary Ethics. State University of New York Press, pp. 162–196. 1993
Video
Dick Alexander speaking at Dan Otte symposium
On horses
Teaching Yourself to Train Your Horse. Woodlane Farm Books., 2001
On Insects
Aggressiveness, territoriality, and sexual behavior in field crickets, Behaviour pp. 130–223. 1961
Children's reading
The Red Fox and Johnny Valentine's Blue-Speckled Hound. Woodlane Farm Books., 2004
