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Amami Guntō NP, Kagoshima
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The center’s forest diorama runs through a whole day in half an hour: its light, sounds and images shift from 15 minutes of daytime to 15 minutes of night, when the forest’s nocturnal life takes over.
The entrance mural is by Miruko Machiko, a picture-book artist and painter who lives on Amami. It’s more than a colorful welcome: the artwork introduces how the island’s natural environment took shape.
Amami is over 80% tree-covered, but most of its forest is secondary growth: after logging, hardy trees such as castanopsis sprouted again. The center notes that a forest can take over 100 years to near its pristine state.
The center’s wildlife guide describes a remarkable anti-habu move: Amami’s spiny rats can spring about 50 centimeters straight up to dodge a snake’s strike. That leap helps explain why they rarely end up as habu prey.
The museum shop carries devadurga clothing made with Amami’s traditional mud-dyeing craft. Tannin from the teichi tree reacts with iron in the mud, turning fabric from brown toward the island’s celebrated deep black.
The center’s island wildlife guide gives the Ryukyu odd-tooth snake an unexpected place in the food web: besides eating birds and reptiles, it may prey on sea-turtle eggs and hatchlings on the nesting shore.
One beetle featured in the center’s guide lives only on Amami and Tokunoshima, has reduced hind wings and cannot fly. It feeds on animal droppings—including those of Amami rabbits.
