Obituary: Tomonari Kaji (1982–2019), evolutionary morphologist extraordinaire

Abstract

Dr. Tomonari Kaji, an exceptional young evolutionary morphologist at the University of Alberta, passed away unexpectedly in May of this year. His passion for the study of developmental and evolutionary transformations yielded a succession of intriguing papers about how spectacular morphological innovations develop or evolved, including such remarkable structures as crustacean suction cups, squirting heads in termite soldiers, envenomating mandibles in copepods, and shrimp and amphipod claws that create explosive snaps. Significantly, his work is a valuable reminder of how great advances in our understanding of the development and evolution of morphological innovations can be made simply by looking carefully and thinking about what you see, no genetics/genomics or complex statistics required. Long live comparative morphology.