The Kyushu Dinosaur Club tour, which I mentioned was in the planning stages in my previous post, was carried out as originally scheduled, a three-day, two-night trip from October 3rd, with an intense dinosaur-focused itinerary covering museums in Nagasaki, Goshoura, and Mifune. Thanks to Dinosaur Club member Mr. O, who lives in Nagasaki and knows the area well, he drove us along the route, and we were able to visit all the museums very smoothly.

While we only glimpsed local tourist attractions like Dejima in Nagasaki, the Amakusa Shiro statue, and Mount Aso from the car window, for the Dinosaur Club, it was more important to discover dinosaur-related objects hidden in the town. For example, we thoroughly enjoyed a trip unique to the Dinosaur Club, such as finding a theropod clinging to the roof of a building (in Mifune) and everyone taking a lot of photos.

First, a report from the museums.

Nagasaki City Dinosaur Museum

Since the exhibition hasn't changed since I visited two years ago, I'll refer you to my previous post for the interior of the museum (New Secret Museum Vol. 76). This time, I'll introduce it from a different perspective.

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As expected for a museum that opened only four years ago, the T-Rex greeting visitors by the entrance has a slight covering of hair. The Triceratops, which I reencountered, still had an impressive presence. And I noticed two interesting items. A scaled-down replica of Triceratops made with a 3D printer (I wanted to buy it but unfortunately it was not for sale) was casually placed in a small room beside the passageway, and surprisingly well-made origami dinosaurs were haphazardly arranged on top of the lockers in the room opposite it.

 

Bottom row

The slightly visible Gunkanjima and Caudipteryx in the back left. Such an open display is unique to this museum. On the right is a magazine titled "Shonen" featuring an article contributed by Dr. Matajiro Yokoyama, with the exhibition preparations for the special exhibition "Dinosaur Old and New Tales - The Trajectory of Fossil Research in Nagasaki" which started the next day. I actually donated it, and it's a book I introduced in detail in New Secret Museum Vol. 47. I'm happy to have contributed. Thank you, Mr. Nakatani, the curator, for accompanying us despite being busy with the preparations for the special exhibition.

 

Now, about the spoils from the museum shop...

At first glance, it looks like a common skull keyring, but on closer inspection, it's quite realistic. When I researched it after returning home, it turned out to be a product of FC Planet, a manufacturer in Yamagata. They seem to sell dinosaur small items like pins and magnets, and fossil pins were also available at the shop for the "Great Extinction Exhibition" at the National Museum of Nature and Science, which I'll mention later. The Spinosaurus is a loosely deformed model, but since it's inscribed as being from Nomozaki, a local area, I couldn't help but buy it. The black plate-like T-Rex is an air freshener interior branded "Sumire," and the manufacturer is the somewhat austere "Tsukazaki Shu Shoten." It's from Fukui Prefecture, a dinosaur mecca. And what delighted our Dinosaur Club the most was the museum's original bag with a brilliant design: the "spikes" of a Stegosaurus are Gunkanjima. There were also T-shirts and towels.

 

Goshoura Dinosaur Island Museum

 

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In the early 2000s, when it was still a small facility called the "Cretaceous Era Museum," I visited it with the Dinosaur Club. At that time, the "largest carnivorous dinosaur tooth in Japan," now carefully displayed in a glass case, was still in a drawer. We were allowed to touch it, and even taken to excavation sites only accessible by boat, which was an invaluable experience. (Secret Museum Vol. 51) The museum just opened in March of last year. Coincidentally, the special exhibition "King of Dinosaurs: The Evolution of Tyrannosaurus" was being held (until December 14th), and it was more substantial than I expected.

 

Reconstructed models of Dilong and Guanlong / Lythronax / Nanuqsaurus

(First encounter with a Nanuqsaurus skull. The dark parts indicate the discovered areas, a simple yet easy-to-understand representation) / Teratophoneus and Suskityrannus / Aliormus

 

The bottom row shows T-Rexes. The two on the left are the AMNH5027 skull before cleaning, and Wyrex.

*Wyrex's first visit to Japan was at the 2017 "Giga Dinosaur Exhibition" (New Secret Museum Vol. 37). At that time, its tail was cut off. At the 2024 "Giant Dinosaur Exhibition," it was somehow reattached after treatment (New Secret Museum Vol. 79), but this time, it was happily back on the floor as before.

 

On the right are the most trendy dinosaurs in the dinosaur world right now, a juvenile T-Rex and Jane. Jane seems to have been settled as an adult Nanotyrannus, not a subadult T-Rex. There is information that only the lower jaw of this juvenile skull has been discovered, and the upper part was created by referencing Jane and juvenile Tarbosaurus, so its authenticity is questionable.

The permanent exhibition is also splendid, and I would like to introduce it in detail, but it would be too long, so I will omit it. Please excuse me with only a photo of the impressive dinosaur parade in the center.

*Both Kitakyushu previously and Mifune, which I will introduce next, have a popular trend of dinosaur parade exhibits in Kyushu museums. While it's powerful to see them in person, it's a problem that the bones overlap and become difficult to distinguish in photos.

The T-Rex standing behind a Diplodocus lying on its side, with an Allosaurus about to bite its neck, is the AMNH5027 from the New York Museum of Natural History, newly updated in a modern style. Along the walls, fossils excavated in Goshoura, small dinosaurs, and skulls are neatly displayed, and the second floor is a Cenozoic mammal corner.

Outside the shop, local stonemasonry was casually placed. If they scanned it and made small replicas to sell as original goods, I would buy them... Unfortunately, I only got the three items shown in the photo at the shop. On the left is an acrylic keychain from a museum original gacha, said to be the first dinosaur fossil (a tibia of a plant-eating dinosaur) found in Goshoura. In the center is a Mosasaurus plush toy, also overflowing with local flavor. Mosasaurus tooth fossils have been found in Goshoura, and a reconstructed model is also on display. And the folk craft "Tsuchiura Dogangu" (read as "dorogangu"), perfect for a souvenir of the trip. It is said to be a new local toy that inherits the techniques of clay dolls passed down in Amakusa. At the museum, in addition to this "dinosaur" with a somewhat forcibly drawn skull, "ammonite" and "strata (!)" were sold, and I wanted to collect them all, but the price was unexpectedly...

 

Mifune Dinosaur Museum

 

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I visited the Mifune Dinosaur Museum in the late 90s, taking a bus by myself during a business trip to Kumamoto. (Secret Museum Vol. 51) It was renovated in 2000, and I visited it along with Goshoura during the first Dinosaur Club Kyushu trip mentioned earlier.

A new building opened in 2014. I wanted to go but never had the chance, and finally, it happened this time. After a quarter-century, the town of Mifune had completely changed its appearance, and the town was overflowing with dinosaurs. Besides the magnificent Mifune-ryu (Carcharodontosauridae) monument in the photo, there were many realistic dinosaur statues, simple T-Rex and Stego made by junior high school students, and a pterosaur tower in the dinosaur park. On the roadside, there were monuments that even enthusiasts would appreciate. The photo shows a Megalosaurus skull relief monument by Buckland, with the discovered parts indicated (!). There were also Microraptor monuments with faithfully carved fossilized specimens. The commercial building had a dinosaur on its roof. There were also dinosaur cake and dinosaur jam shops.

The grand parade in the museum hall was even more tightly packed than in Goshoura, and it's hard to make out in photos, but when viewed from the front, the T-Rex and Suchomimus peek out from beside the Triceratops, making for a picturesque scene. This T-Rex is MOR555 "Wankel." The sauropod in the photo from the second floor is labeled as a Brontosaurus. Of course, it used to be an Apatosaurus, but even the club members living in Kumamoto who participated in the tour were surprised that the nameplate had changed.

There was a rich variety of exhibits, including skeletons of small and medium-sized dinosaurs, detailed displays of Mifune fossils along the walls, a diorama of Cretaceous Mifune, and feathered raptors that would suddenly move and scare children when they thought they were just models in a case. In the curator's office on the second floor, there was what appeared to be a prototype of the Mifune-ryu statue (if you look closely, there's also a F-Favorite skull model), and I thought it would be perfect to make a scaled-down copy for original goods...

The shop had just changed management, so there were few items and nothing that caught my eye... A shame!

 

Looking back, the complete T-Rex skeletons I saw in Kyushu from summer to autumn were Sue, Stan, Trix, AMNH5027, Wankel, and Wyrex. And since I saw Black Beauty in Fukui in the summer and Bucky at the National Museum of Nature and Science in November, it means I've pretty much conquered all the T-Rex complete skeletons residing in Japan within four months.

So, since I didn't spend as much as I thought I would in Kyushu, I bought a wooden Bambiraptor skull made by Mr. Tablin, which I had been curious about and found on Mercari (New Secret Museum Vol. 21 / Vol. 84).

 

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It's great! Take a good look. The scale is 1/1. I took a picture of the Bambiraptor exhibit at the National Museum of Nature and Science when I went there in November. The illustration seems to be from the descriptive paper, but I feel that Mr. Tablin's work is more faithful to the illustration than the replica next to it.

 

In November, the "5th Fossil Market" was held at the campus of TCA Tokyo ECO Animal Marine College in Nishikasai, Tokyo, which offers a major in dinosaurs and natural history museum studies. It was a fun event where fossils and handmade paleo-goods were sold, and you could discuss dinosaurs with instructors and students in a small museum where a full Acrocanthosaurus skeleton barely fit.

 

My haul from here

 

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 A piece by female artist Higashimoto. A wooden Parasaurolophus skull magnet. It's simple but captures the key features.

A 3D printed Maiasaura juvenile necklace from a manufacturer called Dinosaur Base. It's about 2cm in size. Slightly larger ones were sold in study rooms, but they were priced prohibitively, so I finally bought this one when it became affordable. Even though it's small, it's quite beautiful.

Two works by the emerging Japanese painter Iwao Suzuki. The painting on the right, titled "Ancient Heart," is a postcard, but I've seen the original at a Japanese painting dinosaur exhibition. It was a considerably large piece. The one in the center is an A4 size reproduction of a drawing of Stan displayed at the venue just before the "Fossil Market," but the original hanging there was a B3 size pencil drawing. The texture of a pencil drawing is amazing. It might be presumptuous of me to say, but I think he is a truly talented artist. And, of course, it's full of dinosaur love.

 

Finally, a report on the "Great Extinction Exhibition" currently being held at the National Museum of Nature and Science.

 

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Since the theme is the so-called Big Five, there aren't many dinosaurs. The Paleozoic fossil exhibition was also very substantial, but here I will focus on the 4th Great Extinction, the "T-J boundary (end-Triassic extinction)," which is currently my greatest interest. In fact, the most spectacular display at the venue was a two-shot of the Triassic representative phytosaur Redondasaurus and the early Jurassic representative Cryolophosaurus. It's no use getting angry that the related merchandise is only a small Cryolophosaurus pin badge, so I'll list the other main exhibits.

 

Triassic: Tanystropheus / Postosuchus (Pseudosuchian) / Effigia (Pseudosuchian) / Asilisaurus (Dinosauriformes) / and the familiar dinosaurs Eoraptor, Herrerasaurus, Coelophysis

Jurassic: Steneosaurus (Crocodyliform) /

Protosuchus (Crocodyliform) / Heterodontosaurus

 

Here's something I'm curious about...

"Crurotarsal extinction!?"

The classification name "Crurotarsi," which was so frequently used at one time, is nowhere to be found in the venue. In fact, its use has become less common recently. For example, Ken Tsuchiya's latest book, "What Happened During the Largest Mass Extinction in History?" (Blue Backs), focuses on the Permian mass extinction and, of course, elaborates on the Triassic period after the extinction, but the name "Crurotarsi" is absent, replaced by "Pseudosuchia." Feeling a bit confused, I looked it up on Wikipedia and found it to be quite a mess.

 

I can't believe there are so many conflicting theories defining this!

I simply understood Crurotarsi to refer to all archosaurs other than Ornithodira, which includes dinosaurs and pterosaurs (and naturally, phytosaurs and pseudosuches). In the "Great Extinction Exhibition," Phytosauria are classified as Archosauriformes and are separated from Archosauria and Pseudosuchia. There is no mention of Crurotarsi. While it seems like an "extinction" of Crurotarsi, the end of the Wikipedia article mentions an unforgivable theory that dinosaurs and other Ornithodira are included in Crurotarsi. If this were true, extant crurotarsans would be crocodiles and birds. Given this chaotic situation, one cannot casually use the term Crurotarsi, and I understand the recent trend. Ultimately, for us amateurs, it's probably best to just enjoy the fate of Crurotarsi.

 

At the "Great Extinction Exhibition," I discovered another "extinction." The T-Rex and Triceratops in the middle section. These are precisely what were displayed in the old dinosaur hall of the National Museum of Nature and Science, which became "extinct" in 2004, since I was a child. I got a little teary-eyed seeing them again. The photo on the right shows the dinosaur hall around 1980, from "Museums of Japan 10 - Natural History Museums" (Kodansha, 1981). The T-Rex is mounted on a pillar.

I'd like to introduce special exhibition limited goods here, but recently, the trend has been to only have plush toys and character collaboration goods, which are outside my area of interest. I reluctantly bought plush toys of Aegirocassis (the world's first 3D model?) and Tully Monster (New Secret Museum Vol. 54), and passed on the rest. There are 9 types of plush toys in total, but they're quite expensive and take up space, so I can't buy them all. I'll replace the 6 types (excluding the NHK-colored T-Rex, which is only an NHK video and a skull exhibit) with my own collection and introduce them, making a protest that "please stop making special exhibition goods only plush toys!"

 

Anomalocaris (pottery) / Trilobite (metal with eye hooks for hanging things) / Sacabambaspis (gacha) / Dunkleosteus (Star Ace Toys, fossil-like figure) / Dimetrodon (made by Chinese manufacturer "Kikuishi") / Steller's Sea Cow (Takara Tomy gacha "Mysterious Creature Encyclopedia - Extinct Animals")

 

These are the plush toys that are lined up in the shop.

Before showing you the Aegirocassis and Tully Monster I bought, here's another topic related to the National Museum of Nature and Science.

 

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This is Gakken's Science Dinosaur Fossil Excavation Kit, just released at the end of October. It's a delightful project where you excavate a 1/48 model of Raymond, the actual Triceratops fossil enshrined on the wall of the National Museum of Nature and Science's dinosaur exhibition room, and it comes with an explanatory booklet about Raymond. When I excavated it, the main body was entirely black, so I took photos when I went to the Great Extinction Exhibition and colored it as a reference. I think I captured the atmosphere fairly well. Since I went to the trouble, I lined it up with other Raymonds. All of them were purchased at the National Museum of Nature and Science's shop.

The one on the left is a magnet called "Fossil Excavation Triceratops," but I don't know when it was purchased. The one in the center is part of the "National Museum of Nature and Science Collection Reproduction Model" series released to coincide with the opening of the new building (Earth Gallery) in 2004, sculpted by Kaiyodo, with the original model created by Seiji Yamamoto. The craftsmanship is excellent. Unfortunately, it is now out of print. The one on the right is a lucky find from the National Museum of Nature and Science limited gacha "National Museum Stand Figure" series, which I discovered at the "Great Extinction Exhibition." It came out on the first try. The same series also included Homo floresiensis, so I plan to try for that next time.

Gakken's Science Raymond is well-detailed for its larger size, but some details are omitted, perhaps to maintain strength during excavation. I hope they'll release a complete display model in 1/35 scale at this opportunity, which is my wish for next year.

 

To conclude this year, Merry Christmas with Aegirocassis, Tully Monster, and a phylogenetic tree!

Thank you for reading this year.

We look forward to your continued support next year.