Tokubei Kuroda

was a Japanese scientist and academic. He is best known as a pioneering taxonomist and malacologist specializing in Japanese marine and terrestrial Mollusca.

Early life

Kuroda was born at Fukura (now Nandan-cho in Minamiawaji) on the island of Awaji.

Between 1907 and 1984 Kuroda published a vast body of original research, mainly in the journals Venus and 'Yume-Hamaguri'. A full bibliography of his works, listing all his new taxa, was published by the Hanshin Shell Club in 1986. An illustrated catalog of the type specimens in his collection at the Kikuchi Shell Museum (now transferred to the Nishinomiya Shell Museum) appeared in 1996, with a supplement listing his other types published in 1997.

A biography in Japanese entitled "Kai ni madowasareta issho" (A life entranced by shells) was published by Kaoru Higashi of Nishinomiya in 1987.

Shell collection

Kuroda's own shell collection is housed in the Nishinomiya Shell Museum in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, including many of his type specimens. The Imperial collection, on which the 1971 work "The Seashells of Sagami Bay" was based, is housed in the Showa Memorial Institute of the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tsukuba.

Honors Order of the Sacred Treasure, 1939.

Selected works

Articles Kuroda, Tokubei, 1937. "A. Adams’ colour blindness." Venus 7(4): 178 [in Japanese]. Kuroda, Tokubei and Tadashige Habe, 1954. "On some Japanese Mollusca described by A. Adams, whose specimens are deposited in the Redpath Museum of Canada" (No. 1). Venus 18(1): 1-16, pls. 1, 2. P. Callomon, 2003. Henry A. Pilsbry and Yoichiro Hirase, with translation of Tokubei Kuroda’s (1958) "In memory of Dr. H. A. Pilsbry: Pilsbry and the Mollusca of Japan." Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 153: 1-6 Kuroda, Tokubei and Tadashige Habe, 1958. "On some Japanese Mollusca described by A. Adams, whose specimens are deposited in the Redpath Museum of Canada. Venus 18(1): 1-16, pls. 1-2. Kuroda, Tokubei, translated and with an introduction by P. Callomon, 2003. "Yoichiro Hirase, the great collector of Japanese land mollusks, and the collectors who helped him." Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 153:7-14.

Books Kuroda, Tokubei and Tadashige Habe. (1952). Check list and bibliography of the recent marine Mollusca of Japan (edited, Leo. W. Stach). Tokyo: Hosokawa. Tokubei Kuroda; Tadashige Habe and Katsura Oyama. (1971). The sea shells of Sagami Bay. Tokyo : Maruzen. Higashi, K. (1987). Kai ni madowasareta issho. Kuroda Tokubei monogatari (A life entranced by shells - the Tokubei Kuroda story) 272 pp. Nishinomiya, Tokubei-Kuroda-monogatari-kai. No ISBN. Hanshin Shell Club (1986). Bibliography of Dr. Tokubei Kuroda (for commemoration of his 99th birthday). 103 pp, 33 pls. Nishinomiya, Hanshin Shell Club. Habe, T. & Inaba, A. (Eds.)(1996). Catalogue of the shellfish type specimens described by the late Dr. Tokubei Kuroda, in the possession of Nishinomiya City. 152 pp, 44 pls. Nishinomiya City, Hyogo. Habe, T. & Inaba, A. (Eds.)(1997). Catalogue of the shellfish type specimens described by the late Dr. Tokubei Kuroda, except the possession of Nishinomiya City. 61 pp. Nishinomiya City, Hyogo.