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Unzen-Amakusa NP, Kumamoto
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One of Japan’s largest known carnivorous-dinosaur teeth is 6.4 cm long even with its tip missing; researchers estimate it reached about 10 cm intact. Found in 1997, it was Goshoura’s second dinosaur fossil.
A bone first mistaken for an ornithopod’s upper-arm bone turned out to be part of a sauropod rib. Reconstructed at 1.4 m, it suggests an animal about 15 m long—the largest dinosaur estimated from Kyushu.
A boulder collected at Goshoura’s “Cretaceous Wall” in 1997 hid at least 5 pterosaur bone fragments. CT scans identified them 26 years later as Kyushu’s oldest known pterosaur fossil, about 105 million years old.
A Japan-first tyrannosaurid jaw is displayed here, but it was found in Reihoku—not Goshoura. Collected in 2014, the 2 partial jawbones were identified by CT and date to about 74 million years ago.
The museum’s story reaches today’s seas too: Goshoura’s fishing community has vivid food sayings. Locals call chewy sashimi “sashimi wo kame,” and sucking the bones of simmered fish clean “ara-ni wo namero.”
A fish from Goshoura became a new genus and species—and Asia’s first reported marine ichthyodectiform. Its name, Amakusaichthys goshouraensis, honors both Amakusa and the island where it was found.
Research on Goshoura’s 100-million-year-old shrimp and crab fossils identified 3 new species. Their names honor a local geotourism guide, Kumamoto’s “Land of Fire” nickname, and the Shiranui phenomenon.
A junior-high student found this 100-million-year-old fossil during a hands-on dig in 1998. Only a sliver showed at first; cleaning revealed a dinosaur tail vertebra, probably from an ornithopod.
The 38-cm track from Bentenjima was Kyushu’s first reported dinosaur footprint. Waves threatened it, so it was lifted for museum display in 2008; a replica marks the original spot.
In 2015, a Kumamoto Kita High School student found the first amber reported from the Goshoura Group during a public fossil-collecting activity—a surprising discovery among the island’s dinosaur-age rocks.
A nearly complete juvenile Coryphodon skull from Makishima is about 50 million years old. Its milk teeth show it was not yet grown; 3 of the 5 Coryphodontidae fossils reported from Japan came from Goshoura.
An incisor found on Yokoura Island in 2000 was later identified as Asia’s oldest known trogosine fossil. Its owner was a large plant-eating mammal that lived about 50 million years ago.
Goshoura’s first dinosaur fossil was a 40-cm plant-eater’s shinbone, found in 1997. Researchers still debate whether it belonged to an armored dinosaur or a sauropod; it came from ancient flood deposits.
