Ernst Mayr in Japan, October 1994

摘要

"Ernst Mayr wins the Japan Prize" is the title of an article that appeared in the Harvard University Gazette (figure 1); the same title headed an article in Science (Gibbons 1994). Actually, Mayr won the "International Prize for Biology" rather than the "Japan Prize", for there are several "Japan Prizes" awarded by several different committees in Japan. Among these, the most famous is that given by Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) for the most excellent TV program of the year. "Japan" is such a convenient term to explain anything from or related to Japan that our world is flooded with the word. The word "Japan" is, however, not sufficient to explain the diversity of the country. For example, there are 237 molluscan species with the species epithet named after Japan, such as japonica, japonicum or japonicus (Goto and Poppe 1996). This is ridiculous. As an obscure person, I would like to propose a new system of nomenclature, in which the species epithet would be expressed by the author name(s) and published date instead of such irresponsible terms as japonica, etc. However, Professor Ernst Mayr might not have agreed with me.