Dr. Ray S. Birdsong (1935-1995)

Dr. Birdsong was an American ichthyologist. He was a professor at Old Dominion University for nearly 3 decades. His primary research efforts centered on gobies. Dr. Birdsong proposed 30 skeletal characters to define gobies. His work proved to be valuable in the gobioid systematics.

Dr. Birdsong passed away in 1995 from complications from viral pneumonia. In his memory, Dr. Ronald E. Watson named a species of goby, Stiphodon birdsong, after him in 1996.

The following papers were cited in Felder and Camp (eds., 2009), Gulf of Mexico–Origin, Waters, and Biota. Vol. 1. Biodiversity:

Birdsong, R. S. 1981. A review of the fish genus Microgobius Poey. Bulletin of Marine Science 31: 267–306.

Birdsong, R. S., E. O. Murdy, and F. L. Pezold. 1988. A study of the verebral column and median fin osteology in gobioid fishes, with comments on gobioid relationships. Bulletin of Marine Science 42: 174–214.