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MONTHLY NEWS December 1996 Dinosaur Boom at Japanese Museums |
Thanks to a slew of television programs, films, comics, and books about dinosaurs, the extinct reptiles are winning the hearts of children and adults alike in Japan. And museums across the country are now also being swept up by this boom.
A number of special dinosaur exhibits are being held. At the Gunma Museum of Natural History, which opened in October in Tomioka, Gunma Prefecture, five fossils of the creatures are on display. Particularly popular are the brachiosaurus, the tallest dinosaur ever restored, measuring 12 meters (39 1/2 feet) high and 25 meters (82 feet) long , and the first exhibit in Japan of the South American amargasaurus. The museum is visited by an average of about 1,000 people per day on weekdays and over 5,000 people per day on weekends.
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Fukui Prefecture, where nearly 80% of the dinosaur fossils unearthed in Japan have been found, is planning to build a museum devoted to the extinct creatures by around the year 2000. Fukui's prefectural museum opened a Web site in May this year to provide information about dinosaurs and dinosaur-related projects to Net users. The museum says it will shortly provide an English page as well.
Photos: (top) The amargasaurus on display at the Gunma Museum of Natural History; (left) the museum's dinosaur exhibition hall. (Gunma Museum of Natural History) 
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