(born 1950) is a Japanese vertebrate palaeontologist. A student of Shikama Tokio, he did his graduate work at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...

under Everett H. Lindsay, with mentorship also from

George Gaylord Simpson George Gaylord Simpson (June 16, 1902 – October 6, 1984) was an American paleontologist. Simpson was perhaps the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century, and a major participant in the modern synthesis, contributing '' Tempo ...

. The curator of Mammalian Palaeontology at the

National Museum of Nature and Science The is in the northeast corner of Ueno Park in Tokyo. The museum has exhibitions on pre-Meiji period, Meiji science in Japan. It is the venue of the taxidermied bodies of the legendary dogs Hachikō and Taro and Jiro. A life-size blue whale mod ...

, Tokyo, from 1981 until his retirement in 2015, he has published on a wide range of terrestrial and marine mammals, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, crocodilians, and bird tracks, with a special focus on smaller mammals —

lagomorphs The lagomorphs () are the members of the taxonomic order Lagomorpha, of which there are two living families: the Leporidae (rabbits and hares) and the Ochotonidae (pikas). There are 110 recent species of lagomorph, of which 109 species in twelve ...

and rodents — and on the fossil record of Japan. His descriptions and studies of '' Pliopentalagus'' spp. have shown their closeness to the

Amami rabbit The Amami rabbit (''Pentalagus furnessi''), also known as the Ryukyu rabbit, is a dark-furred species of rabbit which is found only on Amami Ōshima and Tokunoshima, two small islands between southern Kyūshū and Okinawa in Japan. Often calle ...

(''Pentalagus furnessi''). Upon his retirement, Tomida was the honorand of a ''

Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

'' in the journal ''

Historical Biology ''Historical Biology'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of paleobiology. It was established in 1988, and is published by Taylor & Francis. The journal is edited by Mark T. Young. Abstracting and indexing The journal is abstracted and in ...

''.

References

Japanese paleontologists Japanese mammalogists 1950 births Living people Scientists from Aichi Prefecture {{Japan-scientist-stub