was a

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

and

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...

. Ishijima was one of the most prolific researchers of

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

calcareous Calcareous () is an adjective meaning "mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate", in other words, containing lime or being chalky. The term is used in a wide variety of scientific disciplines. In zoology ''Calcareous'' is used as an adje ...

algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...

. After graduating from the Imperial Fisheries Institute (

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

; current Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology) in 1927, Ishijima joined the Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Faculty of Science, Tohoku Imperial University (

Sendai is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture, the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,091,407 in 525,828 households, and is one of Japan's 20 Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, desig ...

) from 1927–1931. He then worked at the Institute of Geology, Taihoku Imperial University (

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...

) during 1942–1945 and then at the

Rikkyo University , also known as Saint Paul's University, is a private university, in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, Japan. Rikkyo is known as one of the six leading universities in the field of sports in Tokyo (東京六大学 "Big Six" — Rikkyo University, University of ...

(Tokyo) from 1945–1980. His doctoral dissertation was submitted to

Tohoku University , or is a Japanese national university located in Sendai, Miyagi in the Tōhoku Region, Japan. It is informally referred to as . Established in 1907, it was the third Imperial University in Japan and among the first three Designated National ...

and was privately published by Yūhodō (Ishijima, 1954). He described a total of 139 taxa of fossil calcareous algae (Iryu, 2004) including at least 114 species of

Corallinales Coralline algae are red algae in the order Corallinales. They are characterized by a thallus that is hard because of calcareous deposits contained within the cell walls. The colors of these algae are most typically pink, or some other shade of re ...

, and he produced more than 45 publications on coralline algal

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

Some references

*Ishijima, W. 1943. On some fossil coralline algae from the ryukyu limestone of the Ryukyu Islands and Formosa (Taiwan). ''Memoirs of the Faculty of Science Taihoku Imperial University'', Series III, Vol 1 (3): 49-76. *Ishijima W. 1954. Cenozoic coralline algae from the western Pacific. Privately Published, Yūhodō, Tokyo, 87 pp. *Iryu I. 2004. Calcareous algae. pp. 3–30. In IKEYA, N., HIRANO, H. and OGASAWARA, K. (eds.). The database of Japanese fossil type specimens described during the 20th Century (Part 4). Palaeontological Society of Japan, special papers 42, 1–72. *Iryu, Y., Bassi, D., Woelkerling, W., 2009. Re-assessment of the type collections of fourteen corallinalean species (Corallinales, Rhodophyta) described by W. Ishijima (1942–1960). Palaeontology, v. 52, p. 401–427. *Iryu Y., Bassi D., Woelkerling, W., 2012. Typification and reassessment of seventeen species of coralline red algae (Corallinales and Sporolithales, Rhodophyta) described by W. Ishijima during 1954–1978. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, v. 10/1, p. 171–209. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ishijima, Wataru 1906 births Paleobotanists Japanese paleontologists 1980 deaths Tohoku University faculty 20th-century Japanese botanists