The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku and the subsequent tsunami severely damaged m... more The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku and the subsequent tsunami severely damaged many cultural facilities along the eastern coast of Japan. The Committee for Salvaging Cultural Properties was established in Tokyo through an appeal to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, and the local headquarters of the Committee in Miyagi was established in the Sendai City Museum beginning April 19. The staffs of local museums and the Cultural Properties Protection Section of Miyagi Prefecture joined operations to salvage cultural properties in Miyagi. Tohoku University Museum joined this enterprise to salvage natural-history collections from 6 facilities. Many museum collections were lost in this disaster, but most of the collections exhibited in the Utatsu Ichthyosaur Museum were successfully rescued. After emergency salvage operations decreased, the Miyagi Liaison Conference for preserving damaged cultural properties was established to assume salvage operations from the local headquar...
Abstract. A thylacocephalan fauna from the upper Olenekian (Lower Triassic) Osawa Formation in th... more Abstract. A thylacocephalan fauna from the upper Olenekian (Lower Triassic) Osawa Formation in the South Kitakami Belt, Northeast Japan, is described. The fauna comprises three species belonging to three genera: Ankitokazocaris bandoi Ehiro and Kato sp. nov., Kitakamicaris utatsuensis Ehiro and Kato gen. et sp. nov., and Ostenocaris sp. This is the first report of fossils belonging to the class Thylacocephala from Japan, and it expands their paleogeographic distribution. As almost all genera of Thylacocephala inhabited low-latitude areas in each relevant geological time, their occurrence from the Osawa Formation supports previous opinions that the South Kitakami Belt was located in the equatorial region during the Triassic.
Extant cubozoans are voracious predators characterized by their square shape, four evenly spaced ... more Extant cubozoans are voracious predators characterized by their square shape, four evenly spaced outstretched tentacles and well-developed eyes. A few cubozoan fossils are known from the Middle Cambrian Marjum Formation of Utah and the well-known Carboniferous Mazon Creek Formation of Illinois. Undisputed cubozoan fossils were previously unknown from the early Cambrian; by that time probably all representatives of the living marine phyla, especially those of basal animals, should have evolved. Microscopic fossils were recovered from a phosphatic limestone in the Lower Cambrian Kuanchuanpu Formation of South China using traditional acetic-acid maceration. Seven of the pre-hatched pentamerous cubozoan embryos, each of which bears five pairs of subumbrellar tentacle buds, were analyzed in detail through computed microtomography (Micro-CT) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) without coating. The figured microscopic fossils are unequivocal pre-hatching embryos based on their spherical...
The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku and the subsequent tsunami severely damaged m... more The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku and the subsequent tsunami severely damaged many cultural facilities along the eastern coast of Japan. The Committee for Salvaging Cultural Properties was established in Tokyo through an appeal to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, and the local headquarters of the Committee in Miyagi was established in the Sendai City Museum beginning April 19. The staffs of local museums and the Cultural Properties Protection Section of Miyagi Prefecture joined operations to salvage cultural properties in Miyagi. Tohoku University Museum joined this enterprise to salvage natural-history collections from 6 facilities. Many museum collections were lost in this disaster, but most of the collections exhibited in the Utatsu Ichthyosaur Museum were successfully rescued. After emergency salvage operations decreased, the Miyagi Liaison Conference for preserving damaged cultural properties was established to assume salvage operations from the local headquar...
Abstract. A thylacocephalan fauna from the upper Olenekian (Lower Triassic) Osawa Formation in th... more Abstract. A thylacocephalan fauna from the upper Olenekian (Lower Triassic) Osawa Formation in the South Kitakami Belt, Northeast Japan, is described. The fauna comprises three species belonging to three genera: Ankitokazocaris bandoi Ehiro and Kato sp. nov., Kitakamicaris utatsuensis Ehiro and Kato gen. et sp. nov., and Ostenocaris sp. This is the first report of fossils belonging to the class Thylacocephala from Japan, and it expands their paleogeographic distribution. As almost all genera of Thylacocephala inhabited low-latitude areas in each relevant geological time, their occurrence from the Osawa Formation supports previous opinions that the South Kitakami Belt was located in the equatorial region during the Triassic.
Extant cubozoans are voracious predators characterized by their square shape, four evenly spaced ... more Extant cubozoans are voracious predators characterized by their square shape, four evenly spaced outstretched tentacles and well-developed eyes. A few cubozoan fossils are known from the Middle Cambrian Marjum Formation of Utah and the well-known Carboniferous Mazon Creek Formation of Illinois. Undisputed cubozoan fossils were previously unknown from the early Cambrian; by that time probably all representatives of the living marine phyla, especially those of basal animals, should have evolved. Microscopic fossils were recovered from a phosphatic limestone in the Lower Cambrian Kuanchuanpu Formation of South China using traditional acetic-acid maceration. Seven of the pre-hatched pentamerous cubozoan embryos, each of which bears five pairs of subumbrellar tentacle buds, were analyzed in detail through computed microtomography (Micro-CT) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) without coating. The figured microscopic fossils are unequivocal pre-hatching embryos based on their spherical...
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