Shigeyasu Tokunaga () (1874–1940) was a Japanese zoologist, geologist, and palaeontologist. His family name by birth was and some of his papers were published under this name.

Biography

Shigeyasu Tokunaga was born in Atago, Tokyo on 20 August 1874 ( Meiji 7). His father was a private secretary to the Shimazu clan, while his paternal grandfather had served the

Satsuma Domain The , briefly known as the , was a domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1602 to 1871. The Satsuma Domain was based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, the core of the modern city of Kagoshima, ...

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

. His maternal grandfather was the pharmacologist , his maternal uncle the chemist . In 1894, Shigeyasu enrolled as a student in the Department of Zoology at the

Imperial University, Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Projec ...

, where he also attended lectures and classes in the Department of Geology. As a graduate student at Tokyo Imperial University, he studied under

Bunjirō Kotō Bunjirō Kotō (, April 8, 1856 - March 8, 1935) was a Japanese earth scientist (Geologist). He is from Iwami Province (Shimane Prefecture). Kotō is from Tokyo Imperial University, and after graduating, he became a professor at Tokyo Imperial Un ...

, , and , among others. His 1902 paper coauthored with Jūzō Iwasaki () on the fossil skull to which in 1914 they would give the name '' Desmostylus japonicus'' was the first description of a Japanese Miocene mammal. He went on to conduct geological surveys of Karafuto, the Ryūkyū Islands, Taiwan, Korea, and China, with coal a particular specialism. From 1910 he was professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University. In 1936 he became chairman of the and in 1937 of the . Tokunaga was a devotee of Noh: he studied under the '' sōke'' of the Hōshō school and performed on stage over three hundred times, particularly in plays of the fourth and fifth categories, appearing in later life also in elderly female roles in plays including ''

Sotoba Komachi The aged Komachi rests upon the ''Sotoba Komachi'' is a Noh play written by Kan'ami, and is one of the most compelling and best-known of the type. Plot and themes Much of the strength of the play derives from the variety provided by the three ...

''. His wife edited volumes of '' tanka'', while their eldest son was a specialist in Hungarian literature and professor at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Tokunaga died on 8 February 1940 ( Shōwa 15).

References

External links

Tokunaga Shigeyasu (Japan Paleobiology Database)
{{Authority control Japanese paleontologists 1874 births 1940 deaths People from Minato People from Tokyo University of Tokyo alumni