Hyatt, Alpheus

Hyatt, Alpheus, 1838–1902, American zoologist, b. Washington, D.C., grad. Harvard, 1862. He was a devoted follower of Louis Agassiz. From 1870, Hyatt was custodian and later curator of the Boston Society of Natural History. He also taught zoology and paleontology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1870–88) and at Boston Univ. (1877–1902). At the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology he built up a remarkable collection of fossil cephalopods; his discoveries contributed to the knowledge of their evolution. He wrote extensively on the cephalopods, sponges, and other subjects. Hyatt helped to establish the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass.