Katsura Ōyama

was a Japanese paleontologist and zoologist, best known for his work on the Tertiary and Recent Mollusca of Japan.

Early life

Ōyama was born on October 6, 1917, the second son of Duke Kashiwa Ōyama, who was the second son of Ōyama Iwao. He graduated from the Department of Zoology, Tokyo Imperial University in 1941, and in the following year took up an assistant position in the Natural Resources Institute (資源化学研究所) of the Interior Ministry. and one for his 77th in 1994. A memorial volume of reminiscences and photographs appeared in 1996, following his death on December 30, 1995.

Personal life

A lifelong bachelor, Ōyama was fluent in English and French. Like many of his contemporaries, he insisted on his name being cited in English using its Kunrei transliteration "Katura". He was a co-founder (in 1928) of the Malacological Society of Japan, and attended its annual meetings until 1994. He was latterly a frequent guest at the monthly meetings of the Hanshin Shell Club in Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture, together with other former members of Tetsuaki Kira's post-war Tengu-kai club.

The Ōyama Library

Ōyama built up a massive personal library of books and papers on Paleontology and Malacology that included many major nineteenth-century western works and a substantial body of Russian literature. Following his death this was held in storage at Toba Aquarium for many years, before being transferred to the Osaka Museum of Natural History at Nagai Park in 2013.

Ancestry