The Yokosuka Museum of Nature and Humanities, located in Fukatadai, celebrated its 60th anniversary this year. The museum, which exhibits flora and fauna of the Miura Peninsula as well as historical materials, has served as an academic center with approximately 50,000 visitors in the last fiscal year. A special exhibition is planned to be held on Saturday, the 19th of this month to show specimens of a rare species of "Mitsukuri Shark" caught in Sagami Bay.
The Yokosuka City Museum, the museum's predecessor, opened 60 years ago in 1954 in Kurihama. In 1970, the natural science section was relocated to Fukatadai, where it currently resides, as the "Nature Museum. Thirteen years later, in 1983, with the closing of the Kurihama Branch, the Humanities Department was relocated to Fukadadai and renamed the current "Yokosuka City Museum of Nature and Humanities. The museum has a rich collection of materials from the pre-Jomon period to modern times, including picture scrolls from the time of Perry's arrival and a model of the Yokosuka Iron Works. Currently in Kurihama, the Perry Memorial Museum, built in 1987 as part of the city's 80th anniversary project, is open.
The museum exhibits fossils of Naumann elephant bones discovered in Okine, former Nagai-cho, as well as haniwa clay figures and earthenware excavated from the Miura Peninsula. The museum is also known for the fact that Nobuyoshi Oba, a world-class researcher of fireflies and other luminous creatures, was the curator of the museum. The "Neutrino Exhibition" held the year after local native Masatoshi Koshiba was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics once attracted nearly 100,000 visitors during the exhibition period.
