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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

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 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