LAKE BIWA MUSEUM

Lake Biwa is moving.

4 million years ago, Lake Ohyamada was formed at the area currently Ueno valley in Mie Prefecture. The Lake Ohyamada, also called Old Lake Biwa, gradually moved to north, and reached to the current location 400 thousand years ago. Believe or not, the lake is still moving to north. Probably it will reach to the Japan Sea in the future.

Gallery A shows geological history. You see the gigantic elephant fossil at the centre of the hall. The fossil is big enough for visitors to walk under its belly. This is the Yellow River Elephant’s fossil found in China. It is said that the Yellow River Elephant had been small sized and become the ancestor of the Akebono Elephant, Stegondon aurorae. The Akebono Elephant lived in Japan between 2.5 to 1 million years ago. Its fossil has been found from the Lake Biwa area.

The gallery exhibits other fossils from the era of Old Biwa Lake such as fish, shells and plants. You are allowed to touch the fossils of dinosaur’s droppings, shark’s teeth, and more.

“Wow, it stinks!!” Some kids blows ups his imagination from the dinosaurs’ droppings. According to a guide, many children get surprised by the sharp shark’s teeth.

Biwatsubokamuri, Difflugia biwae, is a very rare plankton. Despite the lake water is cleaner now than it was in 1980s, the plankton has not seen since 1981. Nobody knows why it disappeared. In the Gallery C, you can see planktons through a microscope. The fresh plankton is collected from the lake every morning, so you can see it moving actively. Here is an interesting display about dobu. Dobu is swampy place that looks muddy and dirty, but actually full of small lives, plants and algae. The display of enlarged models shows you the eco system of the micro world in dobu liver. There are crayfish, water boatmans and their food such as grain of rice from through drain.

Mr. Yasushi Kusuoka, the Senior Research Scientist, made this display. He says, “Sometimes the ideal environment for a living thing is dirty smelly place for human. Each live has its own suitable condition to live and it’s different from others. That is one of the themes that the museum wants the visitors to think about. The display here encourages the visitors to aware what the good environment really is more carefully.”

The must see featured fish is the Lake Biwa Catfish. Take a closer look! The huge catfish dwell in the dome tank will amaze you. Two of these catfish are very territorial and wrestle with each other sometimes.

Another interesting fish is ginbuna, gibelio, a kind of carassius. The female fish can produce their offspring without a male.

Gigi the catfish is also unique. She makes noise sound like “gi. gi. gi. gi. gi……”

Ms. Mako Kondo is a guide attending at “Touching Pool”. She observes many children reacting differently from the slimy Nigoro-Carassius. Some kids are afraid of the big nails of crayfish. When she finds kids with full of curiosity, she put a crayfish on their hands. That must be an exciting experience for children.

“It is my pleasure to support children to feel and touch the little wild creatures”, she says.

The American Paddlefish and the Garpike have been existed since ancient era. The fish keeper Mr. Takashi Okada feeds these living fossils here. They eat powdered food in the aquarium. “They are so sensitive. Sometimes I notice that some of them loose their weight and hard to tell why,” says Mr. Okada.

The American Paddlefish opens his big mouth to eat plankton in the wild. The Sturgeon has its mouth at the bottom of his face and eat clams and warms by digging up mud. Let’s observe the different shapes and behaviours of fish.

You’ll learn the local people’s culture and history by the lake. The traditional cargo boats and houses are on display.

"All species are interdependent".

Lake Biwa has about 50 different kinds of fish and 15 of them are the indigenous. The population is decreasing because of alien fish such as the Blue Gill and the Black Bass. Global warming is considered as another reason. The museum research team studies about endangered species at the conservation centre.