We are saddened to report that Bill Gosline was found dead about 1/2 mile from his home on the weekend of June 22, 2002. A celebration of his life, and that of Alice, his wife, was held on Sunday, July 14, 2002. A summary of that celebration can be viewed by clicking here.
Bill Gosline was born in 1915 and raised in Toledo, Ohio. He became an ichthyologist despite his parents objections. He received his B.S. from Harvard in 1938 and his Ph.D. with George Myers at Stanford in 1941. He then worked in Brazil, where he became an authority on Neotropical fishes, especially catfishes. He joined the UM Zoology Department and Museum of Zoology in 1945, but left to join the faculty of the University of Hawaii in 1948. While in Hawaii he completed many publications on coral reef ecology, higher classification of fishes, and functional morphology. He wrote, with Vernon Brock, the Handbook of Hawaiian Fishes in 1965. Among his graduate students are Jack Randall and Gary Nelson. Gosline returned to the University of Michigan in 1972 as an adjunct curator. He was a leading ichthyologist, especially recognized in Europe, but less so in the U.S. after he refused to embrace cladistics. He wrote about 100 papers and was busy in his research until his sight failed about 5 years ago. He shared his office with graduate students at Michigan over the years and was a favorite of all who knew him. He and his wife, Alice, built their home on 60 wooded acres near Independence Lake, where he lived and walked every day as an avid naturalist, until his last walk this weekend. He had catalogued 250 species of flowering plants on the property and had 25 years of detailed flowering times of each. Alice, who specialized in the study of bryophytes, died in 1997. Since then, Bill lived alone at their home with his dog. He is survived by his son, George, a software designer and a botanist at Kew, and his daughter, Ann, a lawyer and mediator.
Bill Gosline, in 2000
 With John Lundberg, ASIH/NIA, 1988, Ann Arbor |
 From the cover of "Fishes of Hawaii" 1965 |
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Bill and Alice, 1995 |
At the First Annual UMMZ/FMNH Pig Roast, 2000 |
 1940 |
 1991 |
Alice and Bill, 1940's
