Stephen David Durrant

Born in Salt Lake City on October 11, 1902, he became one of Utah's best-known mammalogists. Sources describe him as an American zoologist and mammalogist whose research focused especially on pocket gophers of the genus Thomomys and other mammals of the Great Basin.

He studied at the University of Utah, earning degrees there before completing further graduate work, and he went on to teach for many years at the University of Utah. Archival records also note field and government work in the 1930s, including projects connected with fisheries, mosquito control, and gopher control.

His best-known book is Mammals of Utah: Taxonomy and Distribution (1952). He later served as president of the American Society of Mammalogists, and colleagues remembered him as a vivid teacher with a strong interest in students. He died on November 11, 1975.