(born 1950) is a Japanese vertebrate palaeontologist. A student of

Shikama Tokio (1912–1978) was a Japanese vertebrate palaeontologist. Considered the leading Japanese figure in the field in the immediate pre- and post-war years, species he described include Yabe's giant deer ('' Sinomegaceros yabei''). References Ext ...

, he did his graduate work at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

under Everett H. Lindsay, with mentorship also from

George Gaylord Simpson George Gaylord Simpson (June 16, 1902 – October 6, 1984) was an American paleontologist. Simpson was perhaps the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century, and a major participant in the Modern synthesis (20th century), modern ...

. The curator of Mammalian Palaeontology at the

National Museum of Nature and Science The is in the northeast corner of Ueno Park in Tokyo. The museum has exhibitions on pre-Meiji period, Meiji science in Japan. It is the venue of the taxidermied bodies of the legendary dogs Hachikō and Taro and Jiro. A life-size blue whale mode ...

, Tokyo, from 1981 until his retirement in 2015, he has published on a wide range of terrestrial and marine mammals, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, crocodilians, and bird tracks, with a special focus on smaller mammals —

lagomorphs The lagomorphs are the members of the taxonomic order Lagomorpha, of which there are two living families: the Leporidae ( hares and rabbits) and the Ochotonidae (pikas). The name of the order is derived from the Ancient Greek ''lagos'' (λα� ...

and rodents — and on the fossil record of Japan. His descriptions and studies of '' Pliopentalagus'' spp. have shown their closeness to the

Amami rabbit The Amami rabbit (''Pentalagus furnessi''; ), or , also known as the Ryukyu rabbit is a dark-furred rabbit which is only found in Amami Ōshima and Toku-no-Shima, two small islands between southern Kyūshū and Okinawa in Kagoshima Prefecture ...

(''Pentalagus furnessi''). Upon his retirement, Tomida was the honorand of a ''

Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

'' in the journal ''

Historical Biology ''Historical Biology'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of paleobiology. It was established in 1988, and is published by Taylor & Francis. The journal is edited by Gareth J. Dyke (National Oceanography Centre). Abstracting & Indexing The ...

''.

References

Japanese paleontologists Japanese mammalogists 1950 births Living people {{Japan-scientist-stub