Richard W. Burkhardt, Jr. (PhD, History of Science, Harvard, 1972) is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of The Spirit of System: Lamarck and Evolutionary Biology (Harvard 1977) and Patterns of Behavior: Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen, and the Founding of Ethology (Chicago 2005) (winner of the 2006 Pfizer Prize).

His research focuses on the history of evolutionary theory, the development of biological studies of animal behavior, and the history of zoos. He is currently writing a scientific and cultural history of the menagerie of the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris.

In addition to the books mentioned above, his writings include:

2013. “Lamarck, evolution, and the inheritance of acquired characters,” Genetics, 194: 793-805.

2013. “Tribute to Tinbergen: putting Niko Tinbergen’s ‘four questions’ in historical c.ontext,” Ethology, 119: 1-9.

2013. “Civilizing Specimens and Citizens at the Muséum d’Histoire naturelle, 1793–1838,” in Sue Ann Prince, ed., Of Elephants and Roses: French Natural History, 1790-1830, published as volume 267 of Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, pp. 1-15.

2011. “Lamarck, Cuvier, and Darwin on Animal Behavior and Acquired Characters," in Eva Jablonka and Snait Gissis, eds., Transformations of Lamarckism: From Subtle Fluids to Molecular Biology (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press), pp. 33-34.

2010. “Ethology’s travelling facts,” in Peter Howlett and Mary Morgan and eds., How Well Do “Facts” Travel? The Dissemination of Reliable Knowledge (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), pp. 195-222.

2008. “Akteure und Interessen in der Pariser Menagerie,” in Mitchell Ash, ed., Mensch, Tier und Zoo: Der Tiergarten Schönbrunn im internationalen Vergleich vom 18. Jahrhundert bis Heute (Wien: Böhlau-Verlag), pp. 111-131.

2007. “Profile: Niko Tinbergen, the ethologist as field naturalist,” Biological Theory, 2: 87-90.

2007. “The Leopard in the Garden: Life in Close Quarters at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle” (History of Science Society Distinguished Lecture), Isis, 98: 675-694.

2001. "Naturalists’ Practices and Nature’s Empire: Paris and the Platypus, 1815-1833," Pacific Science, 55 (2001), 327-341.

1999. "Ethology, natural history, the life sciences, and the problem of place," Journal of the History of Biology, 32: 489-508.

1997. "La ménagerie et la vie du Muséum," in C. Blanckaert et al (eds.), Le Muséum au premier siècle de son histoire (Paris: Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Archives, 1997), pp. 481-508. English version: "Constructing the zoo: science, society, and animal nature at the Paris menagerie, 1794-1838," in Mary J. Henninger-Voss, Animals in Human Histories: The mirror of Nature and Culture, (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2002), pp. 231-257.

1997. "Unpacking Baudin: models of scientific practice in the age of Lamarck," in Goulven Laurent (ed.), Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, 1744-1829 (Paris: Éditions du CTHS, 1997), pp. 497-514.

1997. "The founders of ethology and the problem of animal subjective experience," In: Marcel Dol et al., eds., Animal Consciousness and Animal Ethics: Perspectives from the Netherlands (Assen: Van Gorcum), pp. 1-13.

1994. "Ernst Mayr: Biologist-Historian," Biology and Philosophy, 9, 359-371.

1991. (With Gregg Mitman). "Struggling for identity: the study of animal behavior in America, 1930-1945." In Keith Benson, Ronald Rainger, and Jane Maienschein, eds., The Expansion of American Biology (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press), pp. 164-194.

1988. "Charles Otis Whitman, Wallace Craig, and the biological study of behavior in America, 1898-1924." In R. Rainger, K. Benson, and J. Maienschein, eds., The American Development of Biology (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), pp. 185-218.

1987. "The Journal of Animal Behavior and the early history of animal behavior studies in America." Journal of Comparative Psychology, 101: 223-230.

1985. "Lamarck and species." In S. Atran et al., Histoire du concept d'espèce dans les sciences de la vie (Paris: Fondation Singer-Polignac), pp. 161-180.

1985. "Darwin on animal behavior and evolution." In David Kohn, ed., The Darwinian Heritage (Princeton: Princeton University Press), pp. 327-365.

1984. "The zoological philosophy of J.-B. Lamarck." In J.-B. Lamarck, Zoological Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), pp. xv-xxix.

1983. "The development of an evolutionary ethology." In D. S. Bendall, ed. Evolution from Molecules to Men (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 429-444.

1979. "Closing the door on Lord Morton's mare: the rise and fall of telegony." Studies in History of Biology, 3: 1-21.