The Carabus of Japan

About this book

Language: Bilingual in English and Japanese

This is an iconographical work on the genus Carabus of Japan, essentially identical to a monograph. All the known taxa of this genus from Japan described up to the spring of 2013 (39 species and 193 subspecies) are illustrated in superb full color and explained in detail in a bilingual manner, Japanese and English.

The Carabus of Japan consists of two parts: a section that corresponds to generals which provides terminology, key to the species, regions and prefectures of Japan and islands of Japan; and a section that corresponds to particulars, which provides illustration and explanation of all the 39 species. 　　

Each species is composed of the following two sections;
I. Color plates
1) On the first page of the color plate are shown imagoes and their magnified partial views on the top half of the page, and genital organs (penis, fully inflated internal sac in several different views and female genitalia) on the bottom half.
2) On the following one to three pages are shown the geographical variation of the species; all the known subspecies and their genital organs are illustrated.
II. Text
1) Textual layout follows a general pattern as follows: 1) original description, 2) history of research, 3) type locality, 4) type depository, 5) morphology, 6) molecular phylogeny, 7) distribution, 8) habitat, 9) bionomical notes, 10) geographical variation, 11) conservation as needed, and 12) etymology.

The major characteristics of this book:
1) Imagoes and genital organs of each taxon are shown by superb digital image using brand-new photographing technique such as focus stacking and photo retouching at the highest level.
2) Detailed structures of the genital organ of all the species are shown exhaustively, including completely everted internal sac of the male genitalia and the microstructure of the female genitalia.
3) Text and caption are written in a bilingual manner, Japanese and English.
4) Original description, type locality and type depository of all the taxa are given.
5) Origin of the scientific name is described for all the taxa, along with various anecdotes related to each name and author.
6) Many new records from small islands in the Japanese territory are given.
7) Detailed distributional maps indicating the type locality are given for all the species and subspecies. Some ecological photos taken in the field are also given for more than half of the species.
8) Original descriptions of all the taxa are shown in the section of cited references.

Customer Reviews