Robert Tucker Abbott (September 28, 1919 – November 3, 1995)[1] was an American conchologist (seashells) and malacologist (molluscs).
His interest in seashells began early; he collected them as a boy and started a museum with a friend in his basement.
He documented the life cycle of the schistosome in Oncomelania, a small brown freshwater snail, which he studied in the rice fields of the Yangtze valley.
During this time, he earned his Master's and Ph.D. at George Washington University and wrote the first edition of American Seashells.
He died from pulmonary disease at his Sanibel Island home, on November 3, 1995, two weeks before the museum opened.