What You’ll See at Mifune Dinosaur Museum

Aug 28, 2024

What You’ll See at Mifune Dinosaur Museum

If you’re a dinosaur fan, you need to pay Mifune Dinosaur Museum a visit. Located in the small town of Mifune in Kumamoto prefecture, the site was home to numerous dinosaurs during the Cretaceous Period. However, it wasn’t until the 1990s that researchers discovered the first fossils. Shortly after, in 1998, the museum was established to share the discoveries with the world.

You’ll know when you’ve arrived at the museum because you’ll see a large Tyrannosaurs Rex statue right by the entrance.

Dinosaur Skeletons and Fossils

A highlight of the museum is the Dinosaur Evolution Grand Parade, which consists of 19 full-scale models of dinosaur skeletons. Next to each model is its fossil, which allows you to see what the researchers found as well as what the dinosaurs would have looked like.

The museum has a total of around 15,000 fossils, all of which were discovered in the area. Many are unlike anything you find in other museums. For instance, there’s a large collection of bivalve fossils from the Mesozoic era, brought by a professor at Kumamoto University.

The most famous fossil is called Mifunesaurus, which was the first carnivorous dinosaur fossil discovered in Japan. Another important fossil is one of Japan’s oldest: the skull of a hadrosaurid, a herbivore that lived 85 million years ago.

The Research Area

The museum is still home to many researchers studying dinosaurs. They carry out field excavations to collect the remains of ancient animals — mostly dinosaurs and other vertebrates.

Unlike at most museums, visitors can see what the researchers are currently working on by stopping by the Open Lab. In fact, visitors can even take part in some activities themselves by attending one of the monthly workshops, which have been created to promote lifelong learning. Activities available range from fossil cleaning to making dinosaur badges.

Special Exhibitions

Around half of the museum is taken up with special exhibitions. There is typically a new one each year, although they often only run for a few months, meaning this part of the museum is frequently unoccupied. The most recent special exhibition was the Pokémon Fossil Museum: a traveling exhibition of life-size Pokémon skeletons next to the real fossils on which they were based.

Mifune Dinosaur Park

A short walk from the museum is Mifune Dinosaur Park. This is ideal for families who are visiting with young children, as it has a dinosaur-themed playground. Kids can climb up the dinosaur-shaped structures, play on the slides, and wade in the stream to cool down in the summer. The park is also a great spot for a picnic.

How to Reach the Museum

If you’ll be visiting Mifune Dinosaur Museum from outside of Kumamoto, you can fly in to Kumamoto Airport or take a bus to Kumamoto Sakuramachi. From the bus terminal, take either the No. 1 or No. 24 bus in the direction of Mifune and get off at the Mifune-cho Dinosaur Museum-mae bus stop. If you’re coming by car, take the Kyushu Expressway and turn off at the Mifune Interchange. The museum is a 10-minute drive from this point.

hyolee2, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons