Obituary: Dr. Reizo Ishiyama (1912-2008)

September 23, 2008

Release from:
By Dr. Hajime Ishihara

Dr. Reizo Ishiyama, professor emeritus of the Tokyo Fisheries University, passed away on Sept. 11, 2008 due to senile decay. He was born on July 31, 1912, in Mihara city, Hiroshima prefecture, Japan. He was well known as the renowned expert on skate systematics in the Pacific Northwest.

He began his formal elasmobranch education at Tokyo Fisheries College (currently Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology). After graduating he developed tuberculosis and became an engineer of fisheries at small farming factory in Tokorozawa, Saitama prefecture. After living a quiet life to recover from tuberculosis, he got position at the faculty of agriculture at the Kyoto University under the professor Kiyomatsu Matsubara. After working at Kyoto University for five years, he became a professor at Shimonoseki College of Fisheries and took on many students.

In the early 1960s, he studied at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in Dr. Hubbs's laboratory, and in 1967, he returned to Tokyo Fisheries University to become a professor. I met him in 1971 and he appointed me as his student to follow his research into skates taxonomy. He retired the university in 1975, but he and I continued to study the systematics of skates. He also continued some professional duties, such as acting as the president of the Japanese Elasmobranch Society for some years since the Society was established in 1977, and by acting as the chief treasurer in the second Indo-pacific fish conference in 1985 in Tokyo.

He is survived by one son and two daughters.

A few of his many publications include:

Ishiyama, R. 1958. Observations on the egg-capsules of skates of the family Rajidae, found in Japan and adjacent waters. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard coll., 118(1): 1-24.

Ishiyama, R. 1958. Studies on the rajid fishes (Rajidae) found in the waters around Japan. Jour. Shimonoseki Coll. Fisher., 7(2/3): 193-394.

Ishiyama, R. 1967. Fauna Japonica. Rajidae (Pisces). Biogeogr. Soc. Japan, Tokyo, vi+84 pp.

Ishiyama, R. and Hubbs, C.L. 1968. Bathyraja, a new genus of skates (Rajidae) regarded as phylogenetically distinct from the Atlantic genus Breviraja. Copeia 1968: 407-410.

Hubbs, C. L. and Ishiyama, R. 1968. Methods for the taxonomic study and description of skates (Rjidae). Copeia 1968: 483-491.

Ishiyama, R. and Hubbs, C.L. 1968. Bathyraja, a new genus of skates (Rajidae) regarded as phylogenetically distinct from the Atlantic genus Breviraja. Copeia 1968: 407-410.

Ishihara, H. and Ishiyama, R. 1986. Systematics and distribution of the skates of the North Pacific (Chondrichthyes, Rajoidei). Uyeno, T., Arai, R., Taniuchi, T., and Matsuura, K. (eds.). Indo-Pacific Fish Biology, Proceedings of the second international conference on Indo-Pacific fishes. 269-280. Tokyo, Ichthyol. Soc. Japan.