is considered a founder of the discipline of

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

ese

primatology Primatology is the scientific study of primates. It is a diverse discipline at the boundary between mammalogy and anthropology, and researchers can be found in academic departments of anatomy, anthropology, biology, medicine, psychology, vete ...

. He was an internationally renowned

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms an ...

and served as a professor

emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

Kyoto University , mottoeng = Freedom of academic culture , established = , type = Public (National) , endowment = ¥ 316 billion (2.4 billion USD) , faculty = 3,480 (Teaching Staff) , administrative_staff = 3,978 (Total Staff) , students = ...

and president of the Primate Society of Japan. He died at age 75 of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severit ...

. As with most Japanese primatologists, his early research was on

Japanese macaque The Japanese macaque (''Macaca fuscata''), also known as the snow monkey, is a terrestrial Old World monkey species that is native to Japan. Colloquially, they are referred to as "snow monkeys" because some live in areas where snow covers the gr ...

s (Macaca fuscata), but most of his career focused on African primates, especially

chimpanzee The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative t ...

s (''Pan troglodytes''). He started research in Africa in 1958. The majority of his work was based around the social structures of primate society. Itani graduated in 1951 from Kyoto University, and became professor in the Faculty of Science in 1981. He founded the university's Primate Research Institute and the Center for African Area Studies. He also served as professor at

Kobe Gakuin University is a private, co-educational university located on the western edge of the city of Kobe, in Hyōgo Prefecture in Japan. It was founded in 1966 and overlooks the city of Akashi, the Akashi Straits and the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge - the longest suspe ...

. In 1984, he received the Huxley Award in Anthropology from the

Royal Anthropological Institute The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biol ...

in London.

Books available in English

* ''Japanese Monkeys in Takasakiyama'' (1954) * ''Hominid culture in primate perspective'' / Duane Quiatt and Junichiro Itani, editors (1994) * ''A Comparative study of ecological anthropology in tropical Africa '' * ''Great Ape Societies'' by William C McGrew; Linda F Marchant;

Toshisada Nishida Toshisada Nishida (3 March, 1941 – 7 June, 2011) was a Japanese primatologist who established one of the first long term chimpanzee field research sites. He was the first to discover that chimpanzees, instead of forming nuclear family-like ...

;

Jane Goodall Dame Jane Morris Goodall (; born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall on 3 April 1934), formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English primatologist and anthropologist. Seen as the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best kn ...

and Junichiro Itani

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Itani, Junichiro 1926 births 2001 deaths 20th-century Japanese zoologists Primatologists Japanese mammalogists Kyoto University faculty Kyoto University alumni Recipients of the Medal with Purple Ribbon