Primates
THE WORLD'S OLDEST PRIMATOLOGY JOURNAL
Primates
Since 1957Primates is the oldest primatology journal, published by the Japan Monkey Centre (JMC) through Springer in collaboration with the Primate Society Japan. The object of this journal is to facilitate the research on the entire aspect of nonhuman primates in connection with human. Museum section of JMC is taking on the role of delegating editorial board members/advisory board members/editor-in-chief, hosting editorial board meeting, and editorial operation of the journal Primates.
Editor-in-Chief Shoji Kawamura
Vice Editor-in-Chief James R. Anderson
Vice Editor-in-Chief Satoshi Hirata
Founding Editor Kinji Imanishi
Afterword of Volume 1, Issue 1 of Primates; October 25, 1957
Currently, there is no journal specializing in primatology; I declare that this is the very first primatology journal. Isn't this exciting? First of all, primatology department is non-existent in any university of the world, and therefore there is nothing such as an academic society for primatology. The modification in the operation of academic authority is evidenced by the fact that the Japan Monkey Centre (JMC) introduced the publication of this specialized journal, skipping the normal course of development, which is to begin by establishing a department at a university, followed by organizing an academic society, and then publishing a journal. The term "primatology" can be translated as "reichourui-gaku" in Japanese. But, we do not prefer such a difficult, orotund name. The primatology that we envision is a new scholarly endeavor to comprehensively investigate, so to speak, the genealogical history of humankind, by comparatively studying primates situated in various phylogenetic statuses, from various academic fields from the perspectives of not only morphology and development, but also physiology, psychology, ecology, sociology, and so forth.
It is from this standpoint that we conceived, an idea of gathering various primate species from around the world in a zoo that is expected to be built under the supervision of the JMC; we do not recklessly expand our research focus to include animals that do not share recent common genealogy with humankind. In this first volume, only articles that are based on naturalistic observations of Japanese monkeys could be included, but this journal seeks to gradually fulfill all the aforementioned ambitions. On the other hand, I request contributions from outside the country and promotion of the journal, until it achieves global recognition. I might have made too many irresponsible remarks, but I just want things to proceed in a lively manner, anticipating a bright future for us. Therefore, I sincerely ask your support and cooperation.
Kinji Imanishi
Editors-in-Chief in the Past
1957 – 1961 Kinji Imanishi
1962 – 1963 Denzaburô Miyadi
1964 – 1968 Junichiro Itani
1969 – 1977 Toshio Tanaka
1978 – 1980 Tsunahide Shidei
1981 – 1995 Masao Kawai
1996 – 2003 Yukimaru Sugiyama
2004 – 2010 Toshisada Nishida
2011 – 2014 Juichi Yamagiwa
2014 - 2020 Tetsuro Matsuzawa
2021 - 2023 Masayuki Nakamichi