William Albert Bussing (September 27, 1933 - November 17, 2014), known as Don William, was an American ichthyologist who spent most of his career on the faculty of the Universidad de Costa Rica, working there from 1966 to 1991. He was appointed professor in 1978 and when he retired he became emeritus professor.
Following his graduation, Bussing obtained an Inter-American Cultural Convention scholarship and travelled to Costa Rica to carry out research on the ecology of fishes of the Río Puerto Viejo, Sarapiquí in Costa Rica. One result of this research was the description of a new species, Phallichthys tico in his first paper published in 1963, the first of over 90 publications. He taught a course in ichthyology at the Universidad de Costa Rica in 1962 and from 1963 and 1965 he worked towards his Masters on the bathypelagic fishes found off the coasts of Peru and Chile. In 1965 he became an assistant researching fish herbivory around Enewetak Atoll. He returned to Universidad de Costa Rica in 1966 to teach biology. In 1968 he was a co-founder of the Universidad de Costa Rica's Museo de Zoología.[1]
In 1990 he was appointed by the Food and Agriculture Organization to study the distribution of fishes on the Pacific slope of Mesoamerica and Colombia, this work being published in many FAO guides to the commercially exploited fishes of the region. In all he wrote over 90 papers, a number of books and described around 60 new species. Bussing described more new species of vertebrate than any other zoologist working on Costa Rica. He undertook most expeditions with his wife, Myrna López, published some works with her too, and dedicated species to her and their children, Ilse and Erick.[1]
^Dawson, C. E. (1974). Studies on eastern Pacific sand stargazers (Pisces, Dactyloscopidae) 1. Platygillelus new genus, with descriptions of new species. Copeia, 1974, 39-55.)
^López S., M. I. (1980). Umbrina bussingi, a new sciaenid fish from the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean. Revista de Biología Tropical, 28, 203-208.)
^Sazonov, Y. I. (1989). A new species of the genus Talismania Goode et Bean (Alepocephalidae) from the southeast Pacific. Journal of Ichthyology, 29, 83-87.)
^Loiselle, P. V. (1997). Diagnoses of two new cichlids from the Rio Sixaola Drainage, Costa Rica. Buntbarsche Bulletin, 180, 1-8.)
^Møller, P. R., Schwarzhans, W., & Nielsen, J. G. (2004). Review of the American Dinematichthyini (Teleostei, Bythitidae). Part I. Dinematichthys, Gunterichthys, Typhliasina and two new genera. Aqua, Journal of Ichthyology and Aquatic Biology, 8, 141-192.)
^Matamoros, W. A., Chakrabarty, P., Angulo, A., Garita-Alvardo, C. A., & McMahan, C. D. (2013). A new species of Roeboides (Teleostei, Characidae) from Costa Rica and Panama, with a key to the middle American species of the genus. Neotropical Ichthyology, 11, 285-290.)
