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
Type specimens of Madoka Sasaki
The depository of the type specimens of Sasaki’s taxa are all recorded in his monograph (1929) including those described earlier (1914, 1915, 1916, 1918, 1920). Among these, the types of 21 taxa were recorded as deposited in either “Tokyo Imp.Univ.” or “Sc.Coll. Tokyo”. Among them the15 types of following are extant:
Sepia subaculeata Sasaki, 1914 [4 syntypes] (= S. lycidas Gray, 1849)
Sepia robsoni Sasaki, 1929 [7 syntypes](=S. madokai Adam, 1939)
Sepia erostrata Sasaki, 1929 [Holotype]
Sepia pardex Sasaki, 1914 [Holotype] (= S. pardalis auct.)
Sepia longipes Sasaki, 1914 [Holotype]
Sepia kobiensis beppuana Sasaki, 1929 [9 syntypes](=S. kobiensis Hoyle, 1885)
Sepia tenuipes Sasaki, 1929 [2 syntypes: fide Gleadall]
Rossia borealis Sasaki, 1913 [8 syntypes: fide Gleadall] (=R. pacifica Berry, 1911)
Meleagroteuthis separata Sasaki, 1915 [Holotype](=Histioteuthis meleagroteuthis (Chun, 1910) )
Ommastrephes volatilis Sasaki, 1915 [5 syntypes](=Ornithoteuthis)
Symplectoteuthis luminosa Sasaki, 1915 [More than 30 syntypes (9 by Gleadall)](=Eucleoteuthis)
Idioteuthis latipinna Sasaki, 1916 [Holotype]
Teuthowenia tagoi Sasaki, 1929 [Holotype]
Polypus fangsiao typicus Sasaki, 1929 [12 syntypes: fide Gleadall](=Octopus fagsiao d’Orbigny, 1841)
Polypus variabilis pardalis Sasaki, 1929 [Holotype](=Octopus minor (Sasaki, 1929))
Some of the syntypes of five species that are mentioned to have been deposited in Hokkaido (Imperial) University were discovered in the present collection:
Sepia kobiensis toyamensis Sasaki, 1929 [1 of syntypes](=S. kobiensis Hoyle, 1885)
Sepiella japonica Sasaki, 1929 [7 syntypes (2 by Gleadall)]
Loligo beka Sasaki, 1929 [24 syntypes](=Loliolus (Nipponololigo))
Polypus variabilis typicus Sasaki, 1920 [More than 19 possible syntypes](=Octopus minor (Sasaki, 1929))
Polypus fangsiao etchuanua Sasaki, 1929 [1 of syntypes](=Octopus fagsiao d’Orbigny, 1841)
The conditions of Sasaki’s types in the Hokkaido University were described in detail by Taki and Igarashi (1967). The syntypes of two more taxa are existing, despite there is no indication of their depository here in Sasaki (1929):
Euprymna berryi Sasaki, 1929 [At least 4 syntypes (25 by Gleadall)]
Loligo edulis communis (?=nagaskensis) Sasaki, 1929 [1 of possible syntypes]
Taki and Igarashi (1967) mentioned that they failed to discover the types of Loligo beka and Euprymna berryi in the collection of the Hokkaido University.
The type specimens of the following eight species should be in the present collection, but are no longer extant: S. kobiensis crassa Sasaki, 1929, Sepiola parva Sasaki, 1914, S. birostrata Sasaki, 1918, Loligo tagoi Sasaki, 1929, Eledonella ijimai Sasaki, 1929, Polypus ovulum Sasaki, 1917, P. tenuicirrus Sasaki, 1929, and P. longispadiceus Sasaki, 1917. The bottle with the label of the type of Teuthowenia elongata Sasaki, 1929 is empty.
Besides the type specimens, there are some specimens used for illustrations in Sasaki’s monograph (1929), such as Sepia misakiensis (tentacle: noted by Gleadall), Loligo bleekeri, and Hapalochlaena fasciata. Also, many specimens were certainly seen by Sasaki, particularly for the locality records, such as: Sepia esculenta, S. peterseni, Idiosepius paradoxus, Uroteuthis edulis, Loligo bleekeri, Loliolus japonicus, Sepioteuthis lessoniana, Watasenia scintillans, Histioteuthis dofleini, Todarodes pacificus, Chiroteuthis imperator, Leachia pacifica, Octopus vulgaris, O. kagoshimaensis, Ocythoe tuberculatus, Tremoctopus violaceus, among others. There may be more specimens examined by Sasaki among those dissected, but none was specified as such.
Two octopuses were identified as Polypus hakodatensis (1 specimen) and P. peni-rector (3 specimens labeled “cotypes”), but these names have never appeared in any of Sasaki’s works.
