Invitation to �gLaboratory for Fish Biology�hApril,2007

SOMIYA Hiroaki  (Emeritus Professor: Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences)

  Fisheries Laboratory (present �gLaboratory for Fish Biology�h) started in February 1951, at the same time when Faculty of Agriculture was founded in Nagoya University.  The first Professor was AMEMIYA Ikusaku  who was one of the members of the founding committee of the Faculty. After his retirement in 1958, Profs. TAMURA Tamotsu (1958-1981), OGURI Mikio (1981-1994),and NIWA Hiroshi (1994-2001) continued to contribute to the development of Fish Physiology. With the reorganization of the Faculty of Agriculture (1993) and Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences (1997), Fisheries Laboratory was renamed Laboratory for Animal Information Biology belonging to the Department of Biological Mechanisms and Functions (Division of Biofunctions Development). I have moved from Mie University in April 2002. The name of the Laboratory was renamed �gLaboratory for Fish Biology�h in April 2006 to indicate more clearly our activities devoted to understand the biology of aquatic animals, focusing mainly on fish neuroscience.
   At present there are few laboratories studying fish neuroscience in Japan, and we are trying our best so that our laboratory can play an important role to promote sensory and neurobiological researches in fish and other aquatic animals.
   Come soon and join us to study brain, behavior and evolution of aquatic animals. With all best wishes, Thank you for your attention!

Photogravure  

20g brain in 1000kg body: what Megamouth shark tells us
 
In May 1997, I had a chance to take part in the dissection of a defrosted megamouth shark (courtesy of Toba Aquarium and Late Dr. Suzuki Kiyoshi ).  I was astonished to see a tiny 20g brain that was dissected out of the gigantic body of the shark weighing 1 ton (more accurately: 1040 kg).  �gWhat a balance!�h- I said to myself - �gI weigh 65kg with an approximately 1.4kg brain, while just a 20g brain in 1000kg body in this fish!!!�h
  The megamouth brain reminded me of the epigram by Lewis Thomas (The Fragile Species, 1992) �gWe humans may be the cleverest of all animals, as we tell ourselves, but we haven�ft really run away with the game, not yet anyway.�h A �ggigantic natural experiment�h spending as long as some 400 million years taught me that the 20 g brain is enough to manage the huge body in a certain life style in a certain environment.

  Previously, the slogan �gthe bigger the better�h was very popular in Japanese society and now �gthe slow is beautiful�h is becoming popular. In societies trying to conserve �gdiversity�h, it is important to respect to the �gground�h rather than a simple slogan.  In this particular case, we might say �gthe small is beautiful under certain circumstances�h. At one night, I met Ms. Megamouth in a dream (our megamouth was a female) and I asked her �gWhat is your philosophy for your life?�h She kindly replied with a smile, �gthe small is reasonable, however, the game is not over yet.�h Almost immediately, I woke up and imagined that 100 million years later, an energy-saving type animal such as megamouth with a small brain may be thriving, irrespective of whether human beings survive or not. Anyway it is a dreamful work to study fish brain. For the details of the megamouth brain, see our paper: Ito, Yoshimoto & Somiya (1999), Copeia (1): 210 - 213.