I had a couple of comments and questions on the cave goby thing, and dug
around on the web a bit to find out more. As a followup to that, and in the
general interest of bragging about family members, here's an article that
discusses another cave goby and explains the Akihito connection.
Article and pictures at:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/15/1097784042651.html?from=storylhs&oneclick=true
Fishy fascination forges link
By Deborah Cameron
Japan Correspondent
Tokyo
October 16, 2004
Left: Dr Doug Hoese will name the fish he has discovered after his long-time
fellow researcher, Japan's Emperor Akihito, right.
Pictures: Jacky Ghossein, AP
With science as their medium, two men - an Australian and the emperor of
Japan - have shared a lifelong fascination with a prolific species of fish.
They have stood at each other's laboratory benches, compared research and
traded specimens.
Now the Australian, Doug Hoese, the retired chief scientist of the
Australian Museum in Sydney, has discovered a new fish and will pay his
collaborator and friend the greatest tribute of all.
"I'm naming it after him," Dr Hoese said.
The new species, to be called Akihito, is tiny and brown with subtle stripes
and extravagant fins. It prefers dark ocean caves and inhabits the waters
off Australia, Japan and New Caledonia.
"Because the fish is in Australia and Japan there's a lot of symbolism," Dr
Hoese said.
Emperor Akihito, 71, is perhaps the world's most scientifically qualified
monarch. He is a biologist with a specialty in gobiid fish and has 26
scientific papers to his name. As a longtime research associate of the
Australian Museum he has visited it and relied on its collection and he is
also a member of the Zoological Society of London.
Much of the emperor's work as a biologist has revolved around the collection
he maintains in a laboratory at his Tokyo Palace, where he employs three
researchers.
It was there about 20 years ago that the fish now being named by Dr Hoese
came to light. The emperor wanted to know what it was and showed it to Dr
Hoese, who was on a visit the lab.
Dr Hoese thought it resembled another fish from Australia and the pair
mulled over who should claim the discovery and publish it.
"He (the emperor) was then the crown prince and if a crown prince says you
do it, I wasn't going to argue with him," Dr Hoese said.
There was to be a second magnanimous moment between the two about 10 years
later when Dr Hoese sent to Tokyo an Australian specimen that he felt
belonged with a group then being worked on by Emperor Akihito.
That fish became the emperor's most recent discovery, the Cristatagobobius
rubripectoralis (redfin crested-goby), which occurs in the tropical waters
of Queensland and the Northern Territory. In research published last year,
he wrote that its high number of scales was a unique characteristic.
The scientific generosity and collaboration between the two is practical but
reflects the trust they have in the quality of each other's science,
according to Dr Hoese. And their fish trading is not like giving away the
crown jewels.
"I mean, there are so many undescribed fish in this particular group that
it's not hard to give one away," Dr Hoese said.
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