  richard kenneth dell  (11 july 1920 â 6 march 2002) was a new zealand malacologist. ==biography== dell was born in auckland in 1920. 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 war memorial museum shell collection.alan beu, bruce marshall and winston ponder : richard kenneth ('dick') dell (1920â2002), obituary, bibliography and list of his taxa; molluscan research, 2003, 23, 85â99 dell studied at mount albert grammar school and later at the auckland university college. he took a teacherâs course at auckland teachers' college, but world war ii delayed his plans to become a teacher. he joined the new zealand artillery, serving 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 meantime, he took a masters degree in science at victoria university of wellington, with a pioneering thesis on cephalopods, octopuses and squid. his breakthrough came with the chatham islands expedition of 1954. the results were published in 1956 as the archibenthal mollusca of new zealand, which was a major contribution to the knowledge of molluscan fauna in the bathyal zone of new zealand waters. this publication earned him a doctorate in science in 1956. soon after, dell 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, which would become the [[mu
1920_births 2002_deaths Companions_of_the_Queen\'s_Service_Order New_Zealand_malacologists New_Zealand_zoologists People_associated_with_the_Museum_of_New_Zealand_Te_Papa_Tongarewa People_educated_at_Mount_Albert_Grammar_School Presidents_of_the_Royal_Society_of_New_Zealand Victoria_University_of_Wellington_alumni