Report on the cephalopod collection inventory of the Department of Zoology, the University Museum, the University of Tokyo
Takashi Okutani
The Malacological Society of Japan
Summary
The collection of marine animals preserved in the University Museum, the University of Tokyo contains many specimens that were collected in the early period of history of the development of Department of Zoology, Tokyo (Imperial) University and establishment of Misaki Marine Biological Laboratory. The cephalopod collection similarly contains specimens collected during about 1880 to 1910 by the famous collector Kumakichi Aoki as well as eminent scholars, such as Isao Iijima, Kakichi Mitsukuri among others. The most valuable specimens are the holotypes and syntypes of Iijima Ikeda (1895), Sasaki (1913, 1915, 1916, 1918, 1929) and Wakiya Ishikawa (1921). Some non-type specimens inspected by Sasaki (1929) for his epoch-making monograph of the Japanese cephalopod fauna are also extant. The collection has been well-investigated by Dr. Ian G. Gleadall for the period from 1992 to 2003. His notes attached to the specimens are of great help for the present inventory. Gleadall (2003) will soon publish elsewhere the results of his careful investigation on the type specimens.
Acknowledgements
Thanks are extended to Dr. Rei Ueshima, Tokyo University, for giving me an opportunity to examine such an interesting zoological/historical collection. I am much indebted by Dr. Ian G. Gleadall, Tohoku Bunka Gakuin University, for his notes of careful investigations in the past. Dr. Takenori Sasaki, University Museum, extended warm helps and encouragement during the present inventorial works during June-August, 2002.
Notes added by the editor
The manuscript of this paper was already submitted to the editor and was accepted for publication on November, 2003, but the actual publication of this catalogue was postponed to 2006 by the delay of manuscripts in other taxa. During the period, another catalogue of the same cephalopodan collection was published by Gleadall and Salcedo-Vargas (2004).
