Japanese “Mammalogy” in an era without “Honyurui-gaku”

Abstract

In early Meiji, when Japanese zoology met modern scientific color under lectures by foreign teachers, we did not have any researchers specialized on mammals. Some scholars started to introduce foreign literature about mammals in several journals. After the Tokyo Society of Zoology were settled with publishing the “Doubutsu Gaku Zassi”, Isao Iijima of the Imperial University and Motoyoshi Namie of Tokyo Education Museum firstly endeavored to disperse the faunal information or knowledges for the mammalian study. In the early 20th century, Bun-ichiro Aoki, Yoshio Abe or some representative researchers educated at the Imperial University contributed to Japanese mammalogy in early Showa. Several foreign people who visited or stayed in this period also facilitated to study Japanese mammals on the abroad by collecting and sending the specimens here. In this review paper, our account of Japanese mammalogy from the Meiji to 1923, the year first mammalogical society settled in Japan, focuses on representative individuals with their achievements and historical contexts.