The Mainichi is reporting that traces of fossilized dinosaur skin have been found in Japan. This is the first time that such a find has been done in Japan. Exciting! Maybe Spielberg and company will see that a Jurassic Park Park 4 could be done about it? We’ll call it “Jurassic Japan: Jurassic Park 4…!” Eh, no, never mind.
(Ok, I’ll work on the title. But think of the carnage of one of those T-Rex’s in Shinjuku… Oh hell, I’m totally off topic aren’t I? ugh, sorry about that.)
Anyways the fossilized skin traces are quite small measuring between 3 to 4 millimeters in diameter. They were found in Katsuyama (勝山市) in Fukui prefecture, and date to about 120 million years ago.
“We’ve had to rely on overseas data for reproducing dinosaur skin, but now domestic data is available. There is a possibility that clearer fossils of dinosaur skin traces will be found in the same area,” said 57-year-old Azuma, who holds a doctorate in paleontology.
(Ok I got a new title.. What about “Jurassic Park 4: Tokyo Terror“. Ohh that’s not half bad… hm, nah that doesn’t work… Ok I give up… Anyways, read the damn article. Its quite interesting!)
Dinosaur films involving them terrorising Japan seem so cliche in light of kaiju films like Godzilla and Mothra
Mark, there are never enough Godzilla films. And with Toho saying (don’t know if its true though) that there will not be anymore Godzilla films, I can say that I for one would still like to see giant lizards terrorize Tokyo.
If Godzilla is taking it easy, counting his money, eating fois gras and enjoying his retirement thats ok. But yeah, there’s just no such thing as too many lizard-attacking-japan movies
I figured that the price you pay for excellent volcanoes is not having much of a fossil record. Imagine my thrill to find A Journal from Japan by Marie Stopes, all about her fossil-hunting trip there (mostly plant fossils - the book has plates, unlike that website). Marie is a fascinating thread in herself: fossils, Japan, and sex. She was once labelled an enemy of the British state, after Hitler and Goebbels, for her work on birth control. And she had an affair with a Japanese scientist.
Good news that Japan has a few big dinos after all.