R. Tucker Abbott
Robert Tucker Abbott , called Tucker Abbott , (born September 28, 1919 in Watertown , Massachusetts , † November 3, 1995 ) was an American malacologist , known for numerous books on snails and mussels .
Life
Abbott began collecting sea snails and clams as a teenager in Cape Cod and the Bahamas (where relatives lived). He grew up in Toronto and studied at Harvard with the malacologist William J. Clench and both founded a magazine on molluscs of the western Atlantic (Johnsonia) in 1941 (when Abbott was still a student). During World War II he was a dive bomber pilot in the Navy in the Pacific and then with a research unit that investigated the life cycle of the billharzia pathogen, for which he identified a freshwater snail (Oncomelania) as the host. From 1944 he was assistant curator and later associate curator for molluscs at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, while he also completed his studies at George Washington University and received his doctorate there. In 1954 he received the Pilsbry Chair in Malacology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. He founded the magazine Indo-Pacific Mollusca in 1959 and was co-editor of The Nautilus (1971 chief editor). In 1959 he became president of the American Malacological Union. In 1969 he went to the Delaware Museum founded by the billionaire and collector John Eleuthère du Pont as Du Pont Professor of Malacology. In 1976 he retired (there were differences with du Pont because of his extensive work as a publicist) and moved to Melbourne, Florida, where he devoted himself to the publication of his books and gave lectures to collectors. Most recently he was instrumental in founding the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum on Sanibel Island , which opened a few weeks after his death in 1995. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
In 1973 he founded his own publishing house, American Malacologists.
Fonts
- Introducing Sea Shells 1955
- How to know American marine shells 1961
- Van Nostrand's Standard Catalog of Shells 1964
- American Seashells, 2nd edition, Van Nostrand 1974
- with Herbert S. Zim: Seashells of the World, Golden Guide 1962
- with Hugh Stix, Marguerite Stix: The Shell: Five hundred million years of inspired design, Abrams 1972
- The Kingdom of the Seashell, Crown Publishers 1972
- with Percy A. Morris: A Field Guide to Shells of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts and the West Indies, Peterson Field Guide Series 1995
- with Mary Elizabeth Young: American Malacologists: A national register of professional and amateur malacologists and private shell collectors and biographies of early American mollusk workers born between 1618 and 1900, Falls Church, Virginia: American Malacologists 1973 (Supplement 1975)
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Abbott, R. Tucker |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Abbott, Robert Tucker (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American malacologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 28, 1919 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Watertown , Massachusetts |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 3, 1995 |