was a Japanese civil servant and naturalist. Born to a doctor of

Traditional Chinese Medicine Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medicine, alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. A large share of its claims are pseudoscientific, with the majority of treatments having no robust evidence ...

in Iida, Shinano Province, Tanaka studied

pharmacognosy Pharmacognosy is the interdisciplinary scientific study of natural drugs and bioactive compounds from plants, animals, and minerals—originally focused on identifying crude drugs but now expanded to molecular, chemical, ecological, and medicin ...

in his youth with Keisuke Ito. In 1861 he moved to

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

and joined the ''Bansho Shirabesho'' (Office for the Investigation of Foreign Documents) the following year. In this job, he worked on the documentation of local produce. He was part of the Japanese delegation at the 1867 ''Exposition Universelle'' in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, where he exhibited a number of

entomological Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the ...

specimens; this journey also gave him the opportunity to learn about Western museum curation. After the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

, the Japanese Civil Service was reorganised. Within the ''Daigaku'' (later the Ministry of Education) Tanaka joined the Bureau of Local Products, and then moved to the Museums Bureau in 1871. A decade later, his services were sought by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce to oversee the menagerie attached to the National Museum of Natural History; Tanaka took advantage of the opportunity to create

Ueno Zoo The is a zoo, managed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and located in Taitō, Tokyo, Japan. It is Japan's oldest zoo, opened on March 20, 1882. It is served by Ueno Station, Keisei Ueno Station and Nezu Station, with convenient access from ...

. Opened in 1882, it was Japan's first zoological park. The creation of the zoo resulted in Tanaka's promotion to Director-General of the Natural History Bureau, however he received little ministerial support for his botanical and zoological planning and resigned from the post the following year. In 1878 he helped to set up a school of agriculture in

Komaba is a residential neighborhood in the northern area of Meguro, Tokyo, Japan. Consisting of four Japanese addressing system, districts, the neighborhood has a population of 6,847. The neighborhood is known as a center for education being the lo ...

(which later became the

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

's Faculty of Agriculture) and in subsequent years was responsible for the founding of several societies, including the ''Dainippon Nokai'' ("Greater Japan Agricultural Society"), the ''Dainippon Sanrinkai'' ("Greater Japan Forestry Society") and the ''Dainippon Suisankai'' ("Greater Japan Fisheries Society"). He also published several books on botany and agriculture. In 1890 he was elevated to the House of Peers and in 1915 he was granted the title of ''danshaku'' (baron). Tanaka died in 1916. The ''

Saxifragaceae Saxifragaceae is a family of Herbaceous plant, herbaceous Perennial plant, perennial flowering plants, within the core eudicot Order (biology), order Saxifragales. The Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy of the family has been greatly revised and the ...

'' species '' Tanakaea radicans'' is named after him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tanaka, Yoshio Japanese civil servants 1838 births 1916 deaths 20th-century Japanese botanists Japanese naturalists Members of the House of Peers (Japan) People from Iida, Nagano 19th-century Japanese botanists Scientists from Nagano Prefecture