March 1, 2018
Keio University
Together with Associate Professor Łukasz Michalczyk of Jagiellonian University in Poland and other researchers, Associate Professor Kazuharu Arakawa (Faculty of Environment and Information Studies) of the Institute for Advanced Biosciences, Keio University (Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture; Director General: Professor Masaru Tomita) discovered a new species of tardigrade in Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture, and named it “Macrobiotus shonaicus.” Tardigrades have been studied for over 100 years in Japan, but there have been relatively few cases of new species being discovered in the country, and this is the first time a species has been found in Yamagata Prefecture. This discovery was presented at 14:00 on February 28, 2018 (4:00 on March 1, Japan time) on the online version of the American scientific journal PLOS ONE.
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