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Here is a written label in japanese language, that contains maybe the name of a plant, it is about and orchid. I would like to know its name. I hope that David from Japan can help me... Coco

Occasionally the Great Big Story has some amazing snippets of life that they deftly film and share. They have a knack for storytelling and this yarn about a museum in Japan dedicated to rocks with faces was just too amazing to pass up. To Quote" If you’re ever in Japan, consider a trip to Chineskikan, located two hours outside Tokyo in the city of Chichibu. The peculiar museum is the only one of its kind, dedicated entirely to rocks that look like human faces. Owned and operated by Yoshiko Hayama, Chineskikan is home to some of the most spectacular stones nature has to offer, with rocks that resemble everyone from Elvis Presley to E.T. Following in her father’s footsteps, Hayama is preserving the legacy of “jinmenseki,” continuing the search for rocks that resemble human faces.

Added three new teeth in recent times to my collection of exotic meg teeth, I'd like to share since there,s not to many images from these localities out there, the photos maybe in shabby quality because I pulled them directly from my Instagram page to save time. 1) This partial tip of a meg was found in the Chiba prefecture of Japan! Acquiring this, even just a fragment was a real pain in the butt as megs from Japan are extremely scare. 2) Even though its not a Meg of course but still being the closest ancestor, this 3.1inch chubutensis tooth was found at a land site in Lecce, Italy with gorgeous color! 3) This tooth measuring 4.1 inches came from new site in Bangkalan City, Java, Indonesia. A majority of the megs here were found with absolutely terrible preservation so this one is one of the best out of the bunch! A few more pics of these teeth can be found on their posts on my page at https://www.instagram.com/nyislandfossils/ if its ok to post this here.

Good evening TFF friends. I have found the following fossil few time ago in amakusa, japan. It is a cretaceous formation (santonian) called himenoura formation. It is a small round fossil of only 2 to 3mm. It has a conical shape with kind of regular growth circle. On the picture you cannot see it but it is covered with enamel. It is kind of common fossil in the part of the formation where cretalamna' s tooth are abundant. Could it be a kind of dermal dentical or is it something else? Thank you very much for your help. David From above. There is still some matrix on the upper part but the fossil is perfectly round.

A new cetacean-related paper is available online: Tsai et. al., 2017. Northern pygmy right whales highlight Quaternary marine mammal exchange. Current Biology 27 (19):R1058-R1059. (link at http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)31096-5) The discovery of neobalaenid fossils from marine deposits in Japan and Italy not only fills a small gap between Miocaperea and the extant pygmy right whale, it also shows that pygmy right whales were widespread in all oceans and seas in pre-Holocene times, suggesting that a number of fragmentary taxa formerly classified in Cetotheriidae from the North Sea basin might be related to the pygmy right whale.

15-million-year-old baby whale fossil reveals ancient breeding grounds. New information about the habits of extinct whales may shed light on the behaviour of their modern relatives, writes Andrew Masterson. https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/15-million-year-old-baby-whale-fossil-reveals-ancient-breeding-grounds Other sources: https://phys.org/news/2017-08-potential-site-miocene-era-baleen.html https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170822092205.htm The paper is: Cheng-Hsiu Tsai. A Miocene breeding ground of an extinct baleen whale ( Cetacea: Mysticeti). PeerJ, 2017; 5: e3711 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.3711 https://peerj.com/articles/3711/ Yours, Paul H.

Amateur collectors in Japan discover country's first and oldest fossil diving bird, Perot Museum of Nature and Science, August 8, 2017 http://www.perotmuseum.org/about-the-perot/newsroom/news-releases/2017/08/chupkaornis-keraorum.html https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170808145449.htm "Two brothers from a small town in Hokkaido, Japan, made the discovery of their lives -- the first and oldest fossil bird ever identified in their country. Identified as a new species, it has been named Chupkaornis keraorum." The paper is: Tanaka, T., Y. Kobayashi, K. Kurihara, A. R. Fiorillo, and M. Kano. 2017. The oldest Asian hesperornithiform from the Upper Cretaceous of Japan, and the phylogenetic reassessment of Hesperornithiformes. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 2017; 1 DOI: 10.1080/14772019.2017.1341960 http://www.perotmuseum.org/media/files/Newsroom/2017/8.8.2017_Tanaka_et_al_2017_Chupkaornis.pdf Yours, Paul H.

Here is some news from kumamoto where a theropod tooth as been found and described recently. Picture of a replica of the tooth: Article in japanese Link to english articles: http://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/_archives/2017/07/06/tyrannosaurs-roamed-late-cretaceous-japan.html http://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/AJ201707060047.html

Hi, I'm super casual about fossil hunting - I'll do it when I get the chance and enjoy it but I'm afraid it's not my life's passion (yet) My usual haunts are Walton-on-the-Naze and other nearby sites, the kind you can wander about and either pick up fragments or break rocks without too much extra equipment. And now I'm in Japan. I've come to Iwate, a prefecture on the northern end of the main island, and will be living here for a while. So how can I find out what sites are near me, and does anyone know the area or have any recommendations? Google is turning up sites that are either museum-only, commercially excavated and private areas, or a fossil park on a different island at the other end of the country.

plz go on and do tell x Area: moni some more photos as eell as similar pieces to follow in a minute

I was wondering if anyone has ever been to a fossil show in Japan. I found some pictures on the Internet of some fossil shows in Japan and the quality of the dinosaur fossils shown are incredible. I'm not sure when or where these pictures were taken.

Few month ago, incapacitated by a broken metatarsal bone, I listened to all Royal Tyrrell Museum's speaker series on youtube when I found among all these amazing an interesting lecture about subject mass extinction event. I can't remember the name of the speaker but during his lecture, he spoke about non-avian dinosaurs' extinction like celestial body, illness, volcanic activities, ninjas who timeslipped to Cretaceous and slaughtered all dinosaurs. I have to admit that the ninja theory really upsetted me.I thaught to myself "Why didn't we hear about this theory more often?" So as I want to help science, and solve this mystery I decided to investigate. Couldn't be better place to investigate ninjas than Japan right? So yesterday I prepared my gear, ate sushis and went to Kumamoto's Tsumori formation, looking for proof... and well, I found some... I only spend one hour on the crime scene when I found one of the deadly weapon japanese ninja used to use: 菱の実 or in shakespeare's language water caltrop. That's right, ninjas used on our beloved ancient creatures this vicious weapon. they used the technic called "makibishi", the same technic that all Samourai feared and that ruined so much waraji (japanese sandal made of straw rope and used during feudal era). I found fossilized water caltrope/ water chestnuts. On a more serious note, I went to the Tsumori formation in Kumamoto yesterday. It is a middle pleistocene formation which yield mainly water caltropes and insects ( the place was a giant pond back then). I didn't find very exciting things but as I didn't post any hunt report for a while I decided to write this one on an humouristic tone and to present you.. well some japanese culture aspects. So except, the ninja time traveler, everything is true. Sorry folks, ninja didn't slaughtered dinosaurs. As during feudal japan almost all samourai weared straw rope sandals,Trapa's seed pods were dried and used by ninja during their escape to slow down ennemies. My finds of the day are Trapa sp. seed pod and leaves, piece of wood indet. with strange features. Hope it entertained you a little bit. See you, David.

Hi everyone, It's been a while. Here are two picture of a bivalve I found in Himenoura formation Japan. I have been hunting these place regularly for 2 years but it is the first time I found such large bivale there. I looked into my local documentation to put a name on it but I didn't found anything. Here is some information about the beast: Formation: Himenoura Age: late Cretaceous, santonian size: 13cm long / 9cm width I think it is a kind of veneridae because the hinge teeth (even if difficult to see on the picture and worn) looks like Mercenaria mercenaria teeth. If someone have any idea about the clam shell, I would be gratefull to hear about.

Mifune Dinosaur Museum is a small museum by its size but not by its collection. This natural museum is focused on the cretaceous period and fossils excavated in Mifune area. Situated in the Kumamoto prefecture in the southern japanese big island called Kyushu, Mifune benefits of a formation called Mifune formation rich in brackish water fossils (invertebrates) in its lower part and in dinosaurs and other vertebrates in the upper part of the formation. Mifune has a good reputation among japanese paleontologists since the first carnivorous teeth was found in 1979. Since then, various species of dinosaurs have been found here (Tyranosaurid, Ankylosaurid, Hadrosaurid, Dromaesaurid, Therizinosaurid, ornitomimosaurid). Beside dinosaurs, mammals (Sorlestes mifunensis), large variety of turtles (slightly different from the turtles found at the same period in Asia) and crocodiles (Eusuchia only) were found. In addition to the museum visit, outside activities such as fossil hunting, geological tour are available. First meat eating dinosaur tooth found in Japan Entrance of the exhibition room/ Montana case View on the main gallery Reconstruction of Mifune's paleoecology Mifune's crocodiles Neosuchia sp bones

The horseshoe crab has survived the last five mass extinctions, but now it’s mysteriously dying Akshat Rathi, quarzt, September 14, 2016 http://qz.com/781335/the-horseshoe-crab-has-survived-the-last-five-mass-extinctions-but-now-its-mysteriously-dying-across-asia/ Living fossil' crabs mysteriously dying in Japan Phys.org, September 15, 2016 http://phys.org/news/2016-09-fossil-crabs-mysteriously-dying-japan.html 'Living fossil' crabs are mysteriously dying in their hundreds: 500 dead horseshoe crabs wash ashore in Japan, Daily mail, AFP, September 15, 2016 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3790531/Living-fossil-crabs-mysteriously-dying-Japan.html Hundreds of horseshoe crabs mysteriously dying in Japan, The Straits Times, September 15, 2016 http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/hundreds-of-horseshoe-crabs-mysteriously-dying-in-japan Yours, Paul H.

Before starting my hunt report, I just would like to make a short preamble, if you only want to read the report, skip this post and go to the second one. I hesitated a lot concerning this post but I think it could answer a lot of question concerning my vacance (sorry Ash, was cut during our chat by nasty tremors but nice pictures and congratulation!). As few know, I live in South of Japan in a city called Kumamoto. I don’t know if outside Japan the event was fairly broadcast (maybe in Montana’s news as Montana and Kumamoto are twin state) but on month ago on April the 14th, an earthquake (Magnitude 6.5 / shindo 7) hit severely the prefecture at 9:26pm. What we thought to be an isolated earthquake was in fact follow by tremors, little brother (Magnitude 6.4 / shindo 6) and the day after at 1 am by big daddy (Magnitude 7.3 /Shindo 7). Since then we experience afterquake every day. Between the 14th and May the 11th the earth shaked 368 times (only tremors above shindo 3) and 1400 times (all tremors) ‘till today. What’s shindo scale ? it is a scale used in Japan which measure the intensity of an earthquake. The scale goes from 1 to 7, 7 being the most intense and effect on human and infrastructure are described as follow: 1 : Felt by only some people indoors./ Upper sections of multi-story buildings may feel the earthquake. 2: Felt by many to most people indoors. Some people awake./ No buildings receive damage./ Homes and apartment buildings will shake, but will receive no damage. 3: Felt by most to all people indoors. Some people are frightened./ Buildings may receive slight damage if not earthquake-resistant. None to very light damage to earthquake-resistant and normal buildings./ Houses may shake strongly. Less earthquake-resistant houses can receive slight damage. 4: Many people are frightened. Some people try to escape from danger. Most sleeping people awake./ Less earthquake-resistant homes can suffer slight damage. Most homes shake strongly and small cracks may appear. The entirety of apartment buildings will shake./ Other buildings can receive slight damage. Earthquake-resistant structures will survive, most likely without damage. 5 lower: Most people try to escape from danger by running outside. Some people find it difficult to move./ Less earthquake-resistant homes and apartments suffer damage to walls and pillars./ Cracks are formed in walls of less earthquake-resistant buildings. Normal and earthquake resistant structures receive slight damage. 5 upper: Many people are considerably frightened and find it difficult to move./ Less earthquake-resistant homes and apartments suffer heavy/significant damage to walls and pillars and can lean./ Medium to large cracks are formed in walls. Crossbeams and pillars of less earthquake-resistant buildings and even highly earthquake-resistant buildings also have cracks. 6 lower: Difficult to keep standing./ Less earthquake-resistant houses collapse and even walls and pillars of other homes are damaged. Apartment buildings can collapse by floors falling down onto each other./ Less earthquake-resistant buildings easily receive heavy damage and may be destroyed. Even highly earthquake-resistant buildings have large cracks in walls and will be moderately damaged, at least. In some buildings, wall tiles and windowpanes are damaged and fall. 6 upper: Impossible to keep standing and to move without crawling./ Less earthquake-resistant houses will collapse or be severely damaged. In some cases, highly earthquake-resistant residences are heavily damaged. Multi-story apartment buildings will fall down partially or completely./ Many walls collapse, or at least are severely damaged. Some less earthquake-resistant buildings collapse. Even highly earthquake-resistant buildings suffer severe damage. 7: Thrown by the shaking and impossible to move at will./ Most or all residences collapse or receive severe damage, no matter how earthquake-resistant they are./ Most or all buildings (even earthquake-resistant ones) suffer severe damage. 90 % of the houses in the little town where the epicenter of the earthquake was, were destroyed, Kumamoto castle is no more and I could continue for days. A simple search on Google will provide you more picture than you want to see. The earthquake happened at the section between 2 fault called Hinagu fault and futagawa fault at a depth of 10 Km. The prefecture is now a paradise for Japanese geologist as new fault were created and because the two side of hinagu fault slide in different direction on 2 meter. Besides the earthquake we entered few weeks ago in the monsoon season and as land is weakened by earthquake it provoked a lot of land slide. This situation caused me to be silent on the forum and forced me to stop fossil hunting for weeks until last week. Was a little bit tired mentally so I needed to get some fresh air and to think about everything but earthquake so I went to my 2 preferred spot on the 13 and tested my chance. The post that follow is my hunting report.

Hi, just a recap of my situation: I live in south of Japan in a city called Kumamoto and I prospect mainly for fossil shell the Himenoura formation which is an upper cretaceous (santonian) marine deposit formation. Even if I know that a lot of shark teeth were found at my usual spot, I never looked for it until my Super Secret Santa send me some superb cosmopolitodus Hastalli tooth and I caught shark tooth virus. Since then, I looked more carefully to this little beauty and found some. As my knowledge in shark tooth is still pretty limited, I ask to a japanese friend of mine who's more into teeth and who told me that the tooth I found was lamna's one. here is the picture of my the one I found. however I have some question about these tooth. As I was looking for information concerning cretalamna in order to determine the place of the tooth I noticed that all cretalamna tooth had cusp. Like this picture from an old post: http://www.thefossilforum.com/uploads/monthly_07_2015/post-3940-0-35234500-1436898635.jpg Did I misidentified the tooth or is there some cretalamna sub species which would have tooth without cusps ? Thank you very much for your help and I hope taht this post will help for futur lamna's teeth identification. David

Hi, Let me tell you about the best week-end I ever spend as fossil passionate. Saturday: Everything started Saturday (27th) at the Mifune Dinosaur Museum (MDM) where I help there as volunteer about three times a week. I am usually in charge of the child related event like post card or replica work-shop however this Saturday was not a usual Saturday. It was the day (MDM) have to send back to Montana’s Rockies museum the 1,5 Ton of rocks and fossils they received 1 years ago when started the “preparation project” and it was the day before the symposium and coming of Phillip Currie in Mifune. In fact MDM and Museum of the Rockies are sister Museum since 2012 and established a program with MDM. According to this program, MoR send to Japan bones to prep, and prepped bones are send back the following years. Last years, MDM received about 1,5T (resin+matrix) and extracted about 140 Daspletosaurus’ bones. For the occasion, Patrick Leiggi and Carrie Ancell came to Japan to supervise and help for the final preparation. For an amateur like me, seeing these professionals working and the result of this years of work was incredible. So after a hard day helping for the preparation for Mr Currie arrival and the sending of the Daspletosaurus’ bones I came back home with the promise than Monday will be a wonderful day. And what wonderful day it will be!

After 2 weeks of cold weather, today, Winter seamed to take a break. No clouds, sunny weather and temperatures above 18 degree celsius, I didn't have to think twice, let's go to the adventure ! As some of you have already noticed, I am more a seaside fossil hunter and today would have been a perfect day to make my skin's tone perfect if the tide would fit my schedule. Too bad for me, low tide time was a little bit too late for me so I decided to drive to Mifune's mountain. Mifune surrounding mountain are part of the Mifune formation. The formation age is Cretaceous (Turonian) and divided in two different Fauna. The lower part of the formation is mainly composed of marine fossil like bivalve but also turtle bones, shark teeth... The upper part of the formation is composed mainly of continental fauna and dinosaurs bones are often found. I divided my trip in two part: 1-Morning: Yoshimuta Plateau (Mifune Lower formation) I went there few times and wanted to explore the surrounding to see if I was able to find some nice spots and bivalves. 2-After lunch: Dinosaur hunt! First time I really took time to look at a geologic map and looked for bones. Yoshimuta: I arrived at about 10:30am at the entrance of the trail and had a 1 hour walk in the mountain before finding and interesting spot. A kind of road cut in the mountain. By looking closer I immediately i noticed: Cerithium Pyramidaeformis, good sign there was life here millions years ago. Now it is time to dig a little bit a see what treasures will appear. Matrix was hard as heck but, I found enough nice bivalve to put a big smile on my face for the day. Put all my found I my Back pack, ate a Rice ball and returned to the car for a 30 minute ride to the next spot and who knows, maybe Dinosaurs. 2- Yakata River I drove to Yakata river and Amakimi Dam. I noticed that part of the river dried up and where surrounded by the upper part of the Mifune formation. If Dinosaurs there are, I thought I would have a chance to find somethink there. I parked my car next to the dam and was welcomed by this sign Temperatures are still cold so I think there is nothing to fear but for someone who is afraid of snakes like me, this sign had a big effect. A picture of the dried up river bed : I tried to go down to the river bed but my adventure in Dinoland had to stop here. As I thought, there is dino bones in there unfortunately the area is forbidden and special clearance was requested to dig up fossil there. I didn't have the occasion to dig up dino bones but I still found a spot where bones are. so good experience for me. More picture on this post too: http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/60896-because-the-trip-and-the-discovery-is-a-big-part-of-our-passion/

Good morning gentleman, I just retranscript you what was airing this morning on all radio news and will be aired most probably on news channel today. The Mifune Dinausaur Museum made a presentation of a new species of dinosaur (I mean still not found in Mifune) found in Upper Cretaceous Mifune formation : an ornithomimosaurian. This found is the first in Japan where they found all sort of theropods and kind prove that this ornithomimosaurian lived also in semi-harid environment. Article in english: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08912963.2015.1025389?journalCode=ghbi20 Article in Japanese: http://kumanichi.com/news/local/main/20151112001.xhtml Living in Kumamoto prefecture is more and more exciting!

Hi, Here is a stuff I found in Himenoura formation, Amakusa Japan. I don't know what to think about that. It was originally part of a big shale boulder on the shore. What caught my attentio at the begining was the colour. With morning humidity it was an orange/pink spot on a big black rock. The matrix is shale, period is santonian and this formation is a marine formation. I am still thinking it is kind of very weathered bivalve but maybe I am missing something important that more experienced people could probably notice. view from above view from the side It is perfectly round like a jacket button and I don't know if you will be able to see it on the above picture but there are perfectly alined hole (you can see 3 holes) What do you think about that ? do you see more than a weathered bivalve ?

Hi everybody, Today I took part in an educational fossil hunting trip organized by the Mifune Dinosaur Museum, in Kumamoto. It was the occasion for me to go once again to a place I visit alone 3 month ago but this time with Kumamoto Paleontologists and… a lot of kids! It was so great to see kids discovering their first fossil, smile on the face. Remembered me years ago when I found my first ammonite. So the place we went was in the mountain near to Mifune Dinosaur Museum (MDM), about 30 minutes by car. It’s a formation called Mifune formation (an original name for sure) from cretaceous period. According to the paleontologist, this part of the formation is full of shell, spiral shell, turtle bones, crocodile tooth and recently shark teeth. There is a big chance that this particular part of the formation was the estuary of a large river. So today we get a briefing at the museum and went on site for a 2 hours hunt. I cannot say I made great found, only found some little shell and spiral shell but I found an imprint of very big carnivorous shell not yet named (They’re doing a study about those one which does not have name yet, they were referred by their closest parent). Anyway today was more about listening to professional and enjoying Japanese autumn than fossil. So please, enjoy these few pictures. I will put some found pictures later, I have some trouble with my camera right now. See you next week for a new hunting trip report, this time, it will be in Goshonoura Island, Amakusa. David

Japan, country where every worker, known as " Salaryman" is a soldier working for the Japanese economic supremacy, is known for its sushi, technology, kimono, ammonite and never resting workers. But his week was quite an event as thanks to 3 national holiday, Japanese "salarymen" (white collar) were able to have some rest during 5 days (from saturday to wednesday). I took the opportunity to go on a fossil hunting trip on the 23rd September. My destination, Amakusa, is a string of island located in the Ariake sea known in Kyushu for its two upper cretaceous formation : * Goshoura formation * Himenoura formation Leaving home at 4 am, I arrived at 6 am just when the first lights hitted the sea. I searched for fossils for about 4 hours at the Himenoura formation near Ryugatake. The formation is made at this place of black shale and contains mainly ammonite (polyptychoceras), inoceramus, shark teeth and flying reptile teeth. The weather was good and I really enjoyed the time spend alone, just with my hammer and my chisel. I found some interesting fossil like a bunch of polyptychoceras, a squished gaudryceras (thanks to fossisle and fossilDAWG for helping me to ID it), an inoceramus and this... thing...don't know what it is, maybe it is not even a fossil. I hope you will enjoy the few picture I put and If you have any question do not hesitate. If yu have any idea concerning the mysterious thing, I am all ears too. Have a nice day, David.

Hi, As I described in my trip report last week (http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/56838-kyushu-fukuoka-pref-ashiya-machi-japan/) I went to Ashiya machi and found what looks like to me a bone. The outcrop is from oligocene period and the matrix is made of sandstone. Found fossil were bivalve, shark teeth, and turittella which suggest a sea environment. Could you help me to ID this fossil ? I will say fossil because I do not even know if this is a bone as it would be the first time I found one. I read that at this place was discovered sort of big penguin called Plotopterum and sea mammal like seals. I read somewhere that birds bones and mamal bones were quite different so even if we cannot put any ID on this maybe, I still have the hope that someone can tell me if it's a bird or a mammal. I am waiting forward to reading your suggestion and post. David

Hello all, I will be going to Japan(specifically Tokyo, Nara and Osaka prefectures) on a free & easy trip end of this month, and was hoping if anyone on TFF can share with me if there are places to go for fossil-related activities. I have heard that the National Science Museum in Tokyo and Natural History Museum in Osaka are worth visiting, any reviews? I am also hoping to pay a visit to any markets or shops that are known for offering fossil material(too bad the Tokyo Mineral show is not on!). I am not sure if Japan has dig-tours for tourists, would really like to get in on one too! Thank you all for your time! Han