At a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on May 18, 1999, the following Minute was placed upon the records.

Charles Richard Taylor, a leading experimental vertebrate physiologist, died on September 10, 1995. Born on September 8, 1939 in Phoenix, he obtained a B.A. from Occidental College in 1960. Under the guidance of Professor Charles P. Lyman, Taylor was introduced to comparative physiology, and completed his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1963.

In 1964, Taylor was appointed as Research Scientist at the East African Veterinary Research Organization in Kenya. Taking full advantage of the excellent laboratory space and the diverse East African fauna, he initiated his pioneering studies on the structural and physiological adaptations of animals to their environment. In 1970 he returned to Harvard as an Associate Professor of Biology and the first Director of the Concord Field station in Bedford. Appointed as an Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology in 1973, he subsequently served (1991) as the first occupant of the Charles P. Lyman Chair in Environmental Physiology.

Taylor’s research combined reductionist with integrative and synthetic approaches. He was a master at dissecting physiological mechanisms in order to elucidate adaptations to specialized life-styles and environments. His approach, invariably comparative, surveyed across the broadest taxonomic scope to discover unifying principles of animal design.

In Africa, Taylor discovered the processes whereby antelopes cope with arid conditions and high ambient temperatures, demonstrating that vascular networks in the head keep brain temperature cooler than body temperature. Among his many contributions to understanding temperature regulation, he determined the pattern of air flow and evaporative heat loss in panting dogs, how snails in the Negev desert can survive for years without water, and why Bedouins wear heavy black or white robes in the desert. In the best tradition of whole animal physiologists, Taylor used himself as an experimental subject. Wearing white and then black robes, he stood motionless in the desert for hours, looking for all the world like a Biblical prophet.

Extending his early work on thermoregulation, Taylor initiated a series of studies on locomotor energetics and biomechanics. True to his comparative approach, he brought to the Field Station a veritable ark of animals: llamas, lions, chimpanzees, horses, hyraxes (rock rabbits), African hunting dogs, foxes, wolves, coyotes, goats, cheetahs, kangaroos, rheas, emus, ostriches, lizards, rats, insectivores, springhares, kangaroo rats, egg-laying mammals, and an assortment of small birds.

Taylor and his collaborators determined the basic relationships between size, metabolic costs, and activity level, answering such questions as, why do small animals need more oxygen per unit body mass than larger ones? Or, why is the weight-specific metabolic cost of moving a mouse a given distance twenty times greater than that of moving an elephant? From his work emerged unifying principles that explained these relationships, a synthesis that has provided a cornerstone for future work on terrestrial locomotion.

In 1975, in conjunction with Professor Ewald Weibel of Berne and other investigators, Taylor commenced his work on the mechanisms that govern the production of muscular energy, namely, how oxygen and the substrates for oxidation are delivered to muscle cells. This intricate problem had yet to be addressed, and required an understanding of how muscles, heart and lungs work together. Taylor and Weibel introduced a new term, "symmorphosis," postulating that the quantity of structure that an animal builds into a functional system is matched by what is needed: enough, but not too much–a seemingly simplistic concept; but in its simplicity lies deep insight. Even so, testing the concept of symmorphosis was a challenge, as it involved determining the maximum rate at which oxygen and fuel substrates could be moved through several systems in animals of different sizes and endurance capabilities. The results of this massive project were presented in a symposium in Ascona, Switzerland in July, 1995, two months before Taylor’s death, and subsequently published in a book, Principles of Animal Design.

Taylor and his collaborators also solved the problem why the endurance capabilities of two animals of the same weight could vary by as much as fifty to sixty times. The answer lay primarily in the storage sites of lipids and carbohydrates within muscle, a finding now central to setting dietary regimes for animal and human endurance training.

Taylor was instrumental in establishing the Concord Field Station as a major center for research on integrative and systems physiology. Taylor transformed the site, originally consisting of three underground Nike missile bunkers and dilapidated barracks, to a research facility unparalleled in this country. The body of work that emerged during Taylor’s tenure there can only be characterized as phenomenal.

Throughout his tenure Taylor sought to promote the use of the Estabrook Woods that are part of the Concord Field Station, both for teaching and independent research. As an active participant of the Concord Land Conservation Trust, Taylor played a major role in creating a plan for the protection of the Estabrook Woods in perpetuity as conservation land specifically designated for teaching, research and public use.

Taylor’s role as a mentor of graduate and undergraduate students is perhaps his most important legacy. His one-to-one relationship with students was without parallel. Taylor initiated a research project course for undergraduates that led to numerous summa senior theses and several Hoopes prizes. In the summer before his death, Taylor supervised no less than nineteen undergraduate projects. Weekly lab meetings were always followed by volleyball or swimming at his home where he was usually the barbecue chef.

Taylor was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a honorary Doctor of Medicine at the University of Berne.

Taylor was devoted to his wife, Ann, and his two children, Gregg and Caitlin. Throughout his life he loved to be physically active. He was an accomplished runner at high school and, until the last few years of his life, an active jogger and skier. Taylor suffered a massive pulmonary embolus in 1972 and a second heart attack in 1990, leaving him with a dramatically reduced cardiac function. Despite his declining health and repeated hospitalizations, Dick Taylor chose to live life to the full. He refused to slow down. His raucous and infectious laugh never diminished in volume or frequency.

Respectfully submitted,

A. W. Crompton, Chair

Farish A. Jenkins, Jr.

Karel F. Liem

John R. Pappenheimer