Tune Sakai

Tsune Sakai (Japanese: 酒井 恒, May 19, 1903 – February 22, 1986) was a Japanese zoologist known for his research on crabs. He was a professor at Yokohama National University and served as the first president of the Carcinological Society of Japan.

Biography Sakai was born in Kanade, Ōi, Ashigarakami District, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. He graduated from Kanagawa Normal School in 1924 and from the Department of Natural Sciences, Tokyo Higher Normal School in 1929. In 1932, he graduated from the Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science and Literature, Tokyo Bunrika University (now University of Tsukuba). In 1939, he received his Doctor of Science degree from Kyoto Imperial University for his dissertation Studies on Japanese Crabs.

He worked as an assistant at the Shimoda Marine Biological Station of Tokyo Bunrika University in 1932, later becoming a teacher at Gifu Women’s Normal School in 1938. In 1943, he became a professor at Kanagawa Normal School, and from 1949 served as a professor at the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Yokohama National University. He twice served as dean of the faculty (1954–55 and 1960–61), and was director of the Science Education Laboratory at Manazuru (the predecessor of the Manazuru Marine Education Laboratory). He retired in 1969 and taught at Tokyo Kasei Gakuin University from 1970 to 1979. In 1956, he explained the spawning habits of the red-clawed crab (Chiromantes haematocheir) at the Imperial Palace and presented the educational film Birth of a Crab to the Emperor.

Species described Pugettia intermedia Sakai, 1938 Neolithodes nipponensis Sakai, 1971 Neopilumnoplax major Sakai, 1978 (now Beuroisia major) Goniopugettia tanakae Sakai, 1986

Selected works Life of Crabs and Shrimps. Kaga Rikabunko, 1931. Illustrated Crabs of Japan. Sanseido, 1936. Research on Animals in the Tidal Flats. Sekai-sha, 1952; reissued by Kokudosha, 1980. Crabs. Shisei Shoin, 1956. Seashore Animals: Our Study of Nature. Chiyoda Shobo, 1968. Siebold and Fauna Japonica: The Dawn of Japanese Zoology (with Lipke Holthuis). Academic Press of Japan, 1970. Crabs of Japan. Kodansha, 1976. Crabs: Mysteries of Their Ecology. Kodansha, 1980.