Kuroda Nagamichi

Kuroda Nagamichi ( Japanese 黒 田 長 礼 ; born November 24, 1889 in Tokyo , † April 16, 1978 ) was a Japanese ornithologist .

Kuroda is a descendant of the daimyōs of the Fukuoka fief , which was founded in 1600 by Kuroda Nagamasa . He showed an interest in bird watching from childhood. There was a large duck pond on his family's estate, where thousands of wild ducks gathered every year.

Kuroda was initially trained at Gakushūin University and while studying zoology at the Imperial University of Tokyo (now Tokyo University ) he visited Korea in 1916 , where he collected one of the last specimens of the now extinct crested kasarka . In 1917 he wrote the first scientific description of the species. In the following years Kuroda made numerous trips to the Ogasawara Islands , Daitō Islands and the Ryūkyū Islands and explored the bird life there. He wrote his doctoral thesis in 1924 about his research on Ryūkyū. After the death of his father in 1939, he inherited the family seat and was given the nobility title of Kōshaku . From 1947 to 1963 Kuroda was President of the Japanese Ornithological Society.

Kuroda was one of the most outstanding ornithologists in Japan in the 20th century. He has written numerous scientific articles on mammals and birds in renowned international journals such as the Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club . Kuroda's standard works include Birds of the Island of Java (2 volumes, 1933-36), Passeres (1933) and Parrots of the World in Life Colors (1975).

Nagamichi Kuroda's son Nagahisa (1916–2009) was also a well-known ornithologist.

literature

• Wu, Yong-Hwa (1996): Forgotten Japanese Zoologists Who Contributed to the Fauna of Taiwan. Morning Star Publisher Inc., Taichung.

Web links

• List of Kuroda's works in the Smithsonian Institution Libraries

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Kuroda is the family name, Nagamichi the first name.