Nature Shop Gill (Tokyo)

flithops,

Thanks for confirming that, no wonder he never replied to my e-mails. Sadly he has a very bad reputation in Japan, and over the past years he has conned at least 1 well-known collector on this forum out of large sums of money by selecting slightly unusual looking specimens of butterflies, putting fake data on them and then inventing so called 'new' subspecies names so he can sell them at a very high price.

Here is a list of some of the fakes he sold:
P. bianor deibunis (Gannan, Tibet)
P. bianor meutingii (Gansu/Tibet)
P. dialis lushanai (Chittalong/Myanmar)
Losaria coon mergui (Great Western Torres Is.)
Losaria neptunus egeria (Great Western Torres Is.)
Atrop. sycorax weiliangi (Great Western Torres Is.)
Atrop. nox trudenari (Great Western Torres Is.)
Byasa aidoneus lauretianus (Great Western Torres Is.)
Byasa polla nerchasis (Great Western Torres Is.)
Atrop. priapus soneharai (Great Western Torres Is.)
Meandrusa lachinus masakiae (Kunthi Kyun Is.)
Papilio polyctor iris (Bentinck Is.)
P. polyctor similianus (Zadetyki Is)
P. mahadeva sissania (Great Western Torres Is.)
Byasa adamsoni arayae (Ko Payang, S. Thailand)
Chilasa paradoxa nynims(South Andaman Is.)
C. paradoxa nicobariensis(Car Nicobar Is.)
C. paradoxa neoaenigmai(Kanmau Kyun Is., Mergui Archipelago)

When asked to provide copies of the descriptions of these 'subspecies' he replied "there's no point sending them because they are in Japanese". Of course everyone knows that Japanese descriptions of new taxa always have at least a summary in English, or very occasionally in another major European language.

One of the top Japanese dealers told me how he was puzzled why Mitsuta used to go to his shop and sort through loads of specimens picking out the occasional one to buy. When I explained what Mitsuta was doing he said it all made sense to him.

Adam.

Yes, I noticed the ad for daisetsuzanus and was suspicious, as that butterfly is strictly protected in Japan. I also thought it strange he was offering P. bianor doii from the Kuriles. Currently there is no access to those islands due to the long dispute since WW2 between Russia and Japan, so I was wondering how he could be offering specimens. That was the first reason I was suspicious, and when he never replied to my e-mails I guessed who it might be. I expect they weren't genuine doii.

I agree he is worse than a conventional swindler, especially since once specimens with false data get into collections (especially fakes of real subspecies - the ones I listed above are obvious fakes, but I have no idea how many fake specimens of real subspecies he has also sold) they may eventually be used in scientific studies, and in 100 years or so the researchers will probably not realise the data is erroneous.

There is another well known swindler who also sells specimens with fake data, actually on a much larger scale but generally lower cost per specimen (eg splitting a collection of a species of Cicindelids from the same place into smaller lots and giving each lot a different fake locality). The nefarious activities of Li Jingke have been well documented on Insectnet over the years.

Adam.