Richard Kenneth Dell (11 July 1920 – 6 March 2002) was a New Zealand

malacologist Malacology, from Ancient Greek μαλακός (''malakós''), meaning "soft", and λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is the branch of invertebrate zoology that deals with the study of the Mollusca (molluscs or mollusks), the second-largest ...

Biography

Dell was born in

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

in 1920. As a young boy, he took an interest in shells, collecting them from the shores of

Waitematā Harbour The Waitematā Harbour is the main access by sea to Auckland, New Zealand. The harbour forms the northern and eastern coasts of the Auckland isthmus and is crossed by the Auckland Harbour Bridge. It is matched on the southern side of the city ...

. He even managed to start a "museum" in his backyard. He also helped curate the

Auckland War Memorial Museum The Auckland War Memorial Museum (), also known as Auckland Museum, is one of New Zealand's most important museums and war memorials. Its neoclassical architecture, neoclassical building constructed in the 1920s and 1950s, stands on Observatory ...

shell collection. Dell studied at Mount Albert Grammar School and later at the Auckland University College. He took a teacher’s course at Auckland Teachers' College, but

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

delayed his plans to become a teacher. He joined the New Zealand Artillery, serving on Nissan Island, the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

, Southwest Asia,

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

, and

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. He later published several papers on the

land snail A land snail is any of the numerous species of snail that live on land, as opposed to the sea snails and freshwater snails. ''Land snail'' is the common name for terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have gastropod shell, shel ...

s he had collected in the Solomon Islands. In 1946, he married botanist and schoolteacher Miriam Matthews, and they had four daughters together. His wife continued working after their marriage and became a well-known women's advocate. 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 meantime, he took a master's degree in Science at Victoria University College, with a pioneering thesis on

cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan Taxonomic rank, class Cephalopoda (Greek language, Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral symm ...

octopus An octopus (: octopuses or octopodes) is a soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish, and nautiloids. Like oth ...

es and

squid A squid (: squid) is a mollusc with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight cephalopod limb, arms, and two tentacles in the orders Myopsida, Oegopsida, and Bathyteuthida (though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also ...

. Dell was one of the zoologists studying invertebrates on the 1949 New Zealand American Fiordland Expedition.'''' His breakthrough came with the 1954 Chatham Islands expedition. The results were published in 1956 as ''The Archibenthal Mollusca of New Zealand'', which was a major contribution to the knowledge of

mollusc Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...

an fauna in the

bathyal zone The bathypelagic zone or bathyal zone (from Greek βαθύς (bathýs), deep) is the part of the open ocean that extends from a depth of below the ocean surface. It lies between the mesopelagic above and the abyssopelagic below. The bathypela ...

of New Zealand waters. This publication earned him a Doctorate in Science in 1956. Soon after, Dell started to work on

Antarctic The Antarctic (, ; commonly ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the South Pole, lying within the Antarctic Circle. It is antipodes, diametrically opposite of the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antar ...

collections, with among others Alan Beu and Winston Ponder. In 1964, he published a major

monograph A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published a ...

on the Antarctic

bivalve Bivalvia () or bivalves, in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class (biology), class of aquatic animal, aquatic molluscs (marine and freshwater) that have laterally compressed soft bodies enclosed b ...

chiton Chitons () are marine molluscs of varying size in the class Polyplacophora ( ), formerly known as Amphineura. About 940 extant and 430 fossil species are recognized. They are also sometimes known as sea cradles or coat-of-mail shells or suck ...

s and

scaphopod Scaphopoda (plural scaphopods , from Ancient Greek σκᾰ́φης ''skáphē'' "boat" and πούς ''poús'' "foot"), whose members are also known as tusk shells or tooth shells, are a class (biology), class of shelled Marine life, marine inve ...

s. In 1965 Dell was a participant in the Royal Society Expedition to the British Solomon Islands Protectorate. Dell became first Assistant Director in 1961 and later in 1966, Director of the Dominion Museum, which would become the

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. Usually known as Te Papa ( Māori for ' the treasure box'), it opened in 1998 after the merging of the National Museum of New Zealand ...

. 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 published more than 150 papers on

Mollusca Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...

(marine, terrestrial and freshwater),

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura (meaning "short tailed" in Greek language, Greek), which typically have a very short projecting tail-like abdomen#Arthropoda, abdomen, usually hidden entirely under the Thorax (arthropo ...

s and

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

s. He also made a major contribution to the Antarctic

biogeography Biogeography is the study of the species distribution, distribution of species and ecosystems in geography, geographic space and through evolutionary history of life, geological time. Organisms and biological community (ecology), communities o ...

Honours and awards

In the 1981 New Year Honours, Dell was appointed a

Companion of the Queen's Service Order The King's Service Order () established by royal warrant (document), royal warrant of Queen regnant, Queen Elizabeth II on 13 March 1975, is used to recognise "valuable voluntary service to the community or meritorious and faithful services to t ...

for public services. In 1977, he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal, and in 1990 he received the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal. He was an honoured member of many scientific societies and committees. He won prizes and medals in New Zealand and abroad, including the Hamilton Prize in 1955, and the Hector Medal in 1965, both awarded by the Royal Society of New Zealand. He has named many new species of molluscs and several new

crustacean Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthrop ...

Death

Dell died in 2002, after a long illness, in

Wellington Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

. He was survived by his wife, Dame Miriam Dell, and their four daughters.

Selected publications

; In scientific journals : * Dell, R.K. (1950) ''A Tertiary molluscan fauna from Waikowhai, Manukau Harbour, Auckland''. Dominion Museum Records in Zoology, 1, 29–37. * Dell, R.K. (1952) ''A revision of the molluscan fauna of the Hurupi beds, southern Wairarapa''. Dominion Museum Records in Zoology, 1, 71–86. * Dell, R.K. (1953) ''A molluscan fauna from the Chatham Rise, New Zealand''. Dominion Museum Records in Zoology, 2, 37–50. * Dell, R.K. (1955) ''Nature in New Zealand Native Shells''. A.H. & A.W. Reed, Wellington, 64 pp. * Dell, R.K. (1956) ''The archibenthal Mollusca of New Zealand''. Dominion Museum Bulletin, 18, 1–235. * Dell, R.K. (1956) ''Some new off-shore Mollusca from New Zealand''. Dominion Museum Records in Zoology, 3, 27–59. * Dell, R.K. (1962) ''Additional archibenthal Mollusca from New Zealand''. Dominion Museum Records in Zoology, 4, 67–76. * Dell, R.K. (1963) ''Notes on some New Zealand Mollusca in the British Museum''. Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Zoology, 3, 171–177. * Dell, R.K. (1963) ''Archibenthal Mollusca from northern New Zealand''. Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Zoology, 3, 205–216. * Dell, R.K. (1972) ''Notes on nomenclature of some Mollusca from Antarctica and southern South America''. Records of the Dominion Museum, 8, 21–42. * Dell, R.K. (1990) ''Antarctic Mollusca with special reference to the fauna of the Ross Sea''. The Royal Society of New Zealand Bulletin, 27, 1–311. ; Other 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) * ''Cephalopoda'' (1959) * ''Antarctic and Subantarctic Mollusca, Bivalvia, Amphineura and Scaphopoda ''(1964)

Taxa named by R.K. Dell

Apart from having named numerous species in the

and some in the

Crustacea Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthrop ...

, he has also established a number of new genera : * '' Alertalex'' Dell, 1956 (Calliostomatidae) * '' Antarctodomus'' Dell, 1972 (Buccinidae) * '' Benthomodiolus'' Dell, 1987 (Mytilidae ) * '' Cavellioropa'' Dell, 1952 (Charopidae) * ''Chathamidia'' Dell, 1956 : synonym of ''Exilia Conrad'', 1860 (Ptychatractidae) * '' Falsitromina'' Dell, 1990 (Buccinidae) * '' Flammoconcha'' Dell, 1952 (Charopidae) * Maoriconcha Dell, 1952 (Charopidae) * '' Maoricrater'' Dell, 1956 (Lepetidae) * '' Maoriscaphander'' Dell, 1950 (Cylichnidae) * '' Obanella'' Dell, 1952 (Charopidae) * '' Pseudegestula'' Dell, 1954 (Charopidae) * family Rhizoridae Dell, 1952 (superfamily Philinoidea) riginally regarded as a synonym of Retusidae by Bouchet & Rocroi (2005) but reinstated as valid by Malaquias ''et al.'' (2009) ] * ''Rissopsetia'' Dell, 1956 (Pyramidellidae) * ''Ruapukea'' Dell, 1952 (Aclididae) * ''Tasmalira'' Dell, 1956 (Cerithiopsidae) * ''Tasmocrossea'' Dell, 1952 (Skeneidae) * ''Tecticrater'' Dell, 1956 (Lepetellidae) * (Crustacea) '' Pteropeltarion'' Dell, 1972 (Trichopeltariidae)

Taxa named in honour of R.K. DellWoRMS: Species with epithet delli
/ref>

* The Sea Snail '' Brookula delli'' Numanami, 1996 * The Sa Snail '' Calliotropis delli'' Marshall, 1979 * '' Carditella delli'' Crozier, 1966 * '' Cuspidaria delli'' Knudsen, 1970 * '' Cyclochlamys delli'' Dijkstra & Marshall, 2008 * '' Cymonomus delli'' Griffin & Brown, 1975 * The fish Genus '' Dellichthys'' Briggs, 1955 * The Sea Snail '' Eatoniella delli'' Ponder, 1965 * '' Gasparia delli'' (Forster, 1955) * '' Limatula delli'' Fleming, 1978 * '' Neilo delli'' B.A. Marshall, 1978 * '' Nereis delli'' Knox, 1960 * '' Nuculana delliana'' Huber, 2010 * '' Ogyrides delli'' Yaldwyn, 1971 * The Sea Snail '' Otukaia delli'' McLean & Andrade, 1982 * The Sea Snail '' Penion benthicolus delli'' Powell, 1971 * '' Platypodia delli'' Takeda & Webber, 2006 * '' Podocatactes delli'' (Guinot, 1989) (basionym: ''Trachycarcinus delli'' Guinot, 1989) * The Sea Snail '' Tractolira delli'' Leal & Harasewych, 2005 * The Sea Snail ''Zeacolpus delli'' Marwick, 1957 : synonym of '' Stiracolpus pagoda'' (Reeve, 1849)

References

Sources

* Tucker, J.K. 2004 ''Catalog of recent and fossil turrids (Mollusca: Gastropoda)''. Zootaxa 682:1-1295

External links

Biography and photo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dell, Richard 1920 births 2002 deaths New Zealand malacologists 20th-century New Zealand zoologists Victoria University of Wellington alumni People educated at Mount Albert Grammar School People associated with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Presidents of the Royal Society of New Zealand Companions of the Queen's Service Order