Dear Members of the Zoological Society of Japan

Happy New Year.
We sincerely hope that this year will be one filled with fulfilling academic activities for all our members.

Now, here is an announcement and a request from our society.
Our society publishes two academic journals. Among them, Zoological Letters has high visibility as an international open-access journal for fundamental zoology; however, as noted in Editor-in-Chief Kuratani's announcement last November, the number of submitted manuscripts has been decreasing in recent years. The Board of Directors takes this issue very seriously and considers increasing manuscript submissions to be an urgent priority. We hope that our members will view ZL as their own journal, just like Zoological Science, and submit their work to it; however, the burden of the APC may be acting as a barrier to submission.
This issue was discussed at the 3rd Board of Directors meeting for the current fiscal year (held on December 12, 2025), and it was decided to provide APC support for society members for a period of three years. We hope this will serve as an incentive to stabilize the number of high-quality basic zoology papers submitted in the future. Details of the support will be provided in a subsequent message from the Editor-in-Chief.
As a zoological society, this is a significant expense, but we have determined that it is a feasible measure that will greatly contribute to the promotion of the society's academic activities. We ask for the understanding of our members and hope that you will take this opportunity to submit your work to ZL.
I look forward to working with you.

January 2026
President of the Zoological Society of Japan
Shiga Takako