Richard Zann

Zann was born on 27 November 1944, and grew up in the town of Casino, New South Wales, where he developed a boyhood interest in wildlife.[2] He graduated from the University of New England in 1965, with a First Class Honours degree. He completed his PhD in 1972 at the University of Queensland, studying the behaviour of grassfinches under the supervision of Jiro Kikkawa.[1][2] He moved to La Trobe University in Melbourne, Victoria in 1972, where he remained until his death in 2009.[2]

The main focus of Zann's ornithological research was the zebra finch,.[2] This work was synthesised in the 1996 book Zebra Finch: A Synthesis of Field and Laboratory Studies, which has been described as his magnum opus.[2] Zann was also known for his studies on the island biogeography of the volcanic island of Krakatau, Indonesia.[3][4] Zann was killed, along with his wife Eileen and daughter Eva, at Kinglake, Victoria in the 2009 Victorian bushfires.[2][5]

In 1998, Zann was awarded the D. L. Serventy Medal by the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union for outstanding published work on birds in the Australasian region.[6][7] In an obituary published in 2009, colleague Mike Clarke described Zann as "a reserved, humble, self-effacing man with a particularly dry sense of humour, who often made fun of his own shortcomings."[2] In 2010, the scientific journal Emu published a special issue in Zann's memory, dedicated to the zebra finch.[6]