Tomohide Yasunaga
Planetary Biodiversity Inventory: Plant Bugs
Tomohide Yasunaga Tomohide Yasunaga,PhD

Research Associate
American Museum of Natural History, New York

c/o Nameshi 2-33-2, Nagasaki,
852-8061, Japan

[email protected]

PBI Role Professional Experience Personal Statement

Tomohide Yasunaga is a Collaborating Scientist for the PBI Project. His expertise on the fauna of the eastern Palearctic and the Orient will help improve the knowledge and coverage of fauna in this region of the world for the project.

Tomohide researched the systematics of Miridae for his graduation thesis (BC) at Kyushu University, Fukuoka, under the supervision of Dr S. Miyamoto (a famous Entomologist as well as a Morphologist). He then obtained his PhD from Kyushu University in 1992, and worked in the National Institute of Ministry of Agriculture and some universities in Japan, before working in the Natural History Museum, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal in 2005. Tomohide has much field experience in Japan and far eastern Russia, including eastern Siberia, Korea, Nepal, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. His early publications focused on the subfamily Mirinae, but more recently he has made extensive contributions to Orthotylinae and Phylinae. Now he is trying to clarify the Asian faunas comprehensively as RA of AMNH.

While I was in Nepal from 2005 to 2007, I really enjoyed watching and investigating the Himalayan fauna and flora by myself, although security issues sometimes prohibited work in the field. I was able to collect thousands of specimens of the Orthotylinae and Phylinae, and take vivid images of live individuals for most species. I believe my best job in Nepal was to have fostered an enthusiastic discipline, Ram Keshari. She made great efforts to clarify the Nepalese Phyline fauna and is said to be the first real heteropterist in south Asia.

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