Kakichi Mitsukuri

Kakichi Mitsukuri
Born	(1857-01-15)January 15, 1857 Japan Tokyo
Died	September 16, 1909(1909-09-16) (aged 52)
Other names	箕作 佳吉
Occupation	zoologist

Kakichi Mitsukuri (箕作 佳吉, Mitsukuri Kakichi, January 15, 1857 – September 16, 1909) was a Japanese zoologist.

Biography

Kakichi Mitsukuri was born in Edo. In 1873 he came to the United States, where he received a Ph.D. degree from Yale in 1879 and from Johns Hopkins in 1883. He was appointed professor in the college of science of the Imperial University of Tokyo in 1882 and councilor of the university in 1893. In 1896, he was made head of the fur-seal commission and signed, on behalf of Japan, a treaty with the United States and Great Britain. In 1897, invited by the Lowell Institute in Boston, he gave lectures on "Social life in Japan" , translated into French in 1922 as "La vie sociale au Japon". In 1901 he became dean of the college of science of Tokyo University, and in 1907 he was decorated with the Order of the Sacred Temple in recognition of public service. In later life his time was largely occupied with administrative duties. He was regarded not only as one of the leading zoologists of Japan, but also as very influential in public life. His most important zoological publications, a series of papers on the embryology of the turtles, appeared at intervals from 1886 to 1896. Mitsukuri also brought the "holotype" goblin shark to the California Academy of Sciences where the genus was named after himself and the specimen trader Alan Owston, with the scientific name Mitsukurina ownstonii.

Works

• Mitsukuri, Kakichi (1906), "The cultivation of marine and fresh-water animals in Japan", in Rogers, Howard Jason (ed.), Congress of arts and science: Universal exposition, St. Louis, 1904, Houghton, Mifflin and company, pp. 694–732

Taxa described by him

• See Category:Taxa named by Kakichi Mitsukuri

Taxa named in his honor

• Mitsukurina is a genus of mackerel shark in the family Mitsukurinidae. It contains one extant species, the goblin shark (M. owstoni) and more extinct species. The genus was described by American ichthyologist David Starr Jordan in 1898 and named in his honor.