Hyōjirō Orii

Biography

Born in Niigata Prefecture in 1883, Orii moved to Hakodate in 1899; in 1913 he would move again, from Hakodate to a house on the banks of the Bibi River where it meets Lake Utonai (now a Ramsar site), in what was then the village of Tomakomai. In total, as many as 14 species and 41 subspecies of mammal, and 6 species and 68 subspecies of bird were described from type specimens he provided. The collection diaries are compiled in a somewhat idiosyncratic fashion, interspersed with English and Chinese, and with names sometimes in hiragana, sometimes katakana; in 2013, they were published in a modern Japanese translation.

Ryūkyū shrew (Crocidura orii; protonym: Crocidura dsinezumi orii)

Sakhalin hare (Lepus timidus orii)

Ezo flying squirrel (Pteromys volans orii; protonym: Sciuropterus russicus orii)

Orii's least horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus cornutus orii)

Yakushima jay (Garrulus glandarius orii)

Japanese light-vented bulbul (Pycnonotus sinensis orii)

†Daitō varied tit (Sittiparus varius orii)

Taiwan turtle dove (Streptopelia orientalis orii)

Rota kingfisher (Todiramphus albicilla orii; protonym: Halcyon chloris orii)

Kuril brown-headed thrush (Turdus chrysolaus orii)

Iriomote pygmy woodpecker (Yungipicus kizuki orii)