Richard Dell
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Richard Kenneth Dell (July 11, 1920 - March 6, 2002) was a New Zealand malacologist.
He was born in Auckland. As a young boy, he took an interest in shells, collecting them from the shores of Waitemata Harbour. He even managed to start a "museum" in his backyard. He also helped curate the Auckland Museum shell collection.
Dell went to Mount Albert Grammar School and later to the Auckland University College. He took a teacher’s course at the Auckland Teachers' College. But the World War II delayed his plans of becoming a teacher. He joined the New Zealand Artillery. He served on Nissan Island, the Solomon Islands, in the Middle East, Egypt, and Italy.
He later published several papers on the land snails he had collected in the Solomon Islands.
After the war, Dell was offered a job as malacologist at the Dominion Museum, where he started to standardise the cabinets and built up a collection of more than 30,000 specimens. In the mean time, he took a degree of Master in Science at the Victoria University of Wellington, with a pioneering thesis on octopi an squid.
His breakthrough came with the Chatham Islands Expedition in 1954. The results were published in 1956 as The archibenthal Mollusca of New Zealand, which gave a major contribution to the knowledge of molluscan fauna in the bathyal zone of New Zealand waters. This publication made him earn a Doctor in Science in 1956.
Soon after, he started to work on Antarctic collections, with among others Alan Beu and Winston Ponder. In 1964 he published a major monograph on the Antarctic bivalves, chitons and scaphopods.
Dell became first Assistant Director in 1961 and later in 1966, Director of the Dominion Museum, that would become the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
He retired in 1980, and started writing again. In 1990 he published his standard work Antarctic Mollusca with special reference to the Fauna of the Ross Sea.
Dell has published more than 150 papers on Mollusca (marine, terrestrial or freshwater), crabs and birds. He made also a major contribution to the Antarctic biogeography.
He was a honored member of many scientific societies and committees. He won prizes and medals in New Zealand and abroad. He has named many new species of mollusks and several new crustaceans.
Dell was the last of his generation of important New Zealand malacologists, but he made a decent example to younger scientists.
He died, after a long illness, in Wellington.
Selected publications
- The New Zealand Cephalopoda (1952)
- The fresh-water Mollusca of new Zealand, 3 parts (1953-1956)
- The position of systematics in the biological sciences (1953)
- The archibenthal Mollusca of New Zealand (1956)
- Cephalopoda (1959)
- Antarctic and Subantarctic Mollusca, Bivalvia, Amphineura and Scaphopoda (1964)
- Antarctic Mollusca with special reference to the fauna of the Ross Sea (1990)
External link
- Biography and photo (http://www.rsnz.govt.nz/directory/yearbooks/year02/dell.php)