We visited Mt. Banshoyama（番所山）in Shirahama of Wakayama Prefecture and Minakata Kumagusu Archives（南方熊楠顕彰館）in Tanabe of the same prefecture on May the 4th 2023. I visited Seto Marine Biological Laboratory of Kyoto University, which was at the base of Banshoyama in 1999 and 2001, when I was an undergraduate of Kyoto University. They were interesting experiences and I came back to this district after 22 years. First, we visited Shirahama Aquarium of Kyoto University, which also locates at the base of the mountain.
https://www.seto.kyoto-u.ac.jp/aquarium/aquarium-E-top.html
It is a small and cozy place. If you know a little about how marine biologists observe the living organisms, it is fun to go around the displays in a systematic view. There are also many ecology exhibitions. For example, bluestreak cleaner wrasses (Labroides dimidatusホンソメワケベラ) are introduced to eliminate parasites. In the photo below, this fish is eating parasites of a white-spotted parrotfish (Calotomus japonicusブダイ). White-spotted parrotfish are also famous for sleeping in their handmade sleeping bags.
Bluestreak cleaner wrasses are also famous for their high ability for perceiving and recognizing reflected mirror images as selves. They had better scores than chimpanzees and elephants.
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000021
There are also a lot of sea anemones contaminated in water tanks. To remove the anemones, stripeys (Microcanthus strigatusカゴカキダイ) are introduced in many of the tanks.
After visiting the aquarium, we visited Minakata Kumagusu Museum（南方熊楠記念館）.
http://www.minakatakumagusu-kinenkan.jp/english
Kumagusu Minakata was an intellectual giant of Japan from Meiji to early Showa era. He is famous for his achievements in biology (especially for describing new species for myxomycetes), anthropology, and environmental preservation pioneering. He also published 51 papers in Nature during his lifetime. The museum makes it easy to understand his biography. There is also a place for observing specimens of myxomycetes. The photos below are scenery from the top of Minakata Kumagusu Museum. It is easy to recognize this place as a national park.
I took a photo of a monument of a tanka made by Emperor Showa. The tanka is: “Ame ni kefuru Kashima wo mi te Kii-no-kuni no umi shi Minakata Kumagusu wo omofu (When I watched Kashima Island in smoky rain, I remember Minakata Kumagusu, who was born in Kii no kuni here)”「雨にけふる神島を見て 紀伊の国の生みし南方熊楠を思ふ」.
We then moved to Minakata Kumagusu Archives（南方熊楠顕彰館）in Tanabe. This place maintains an archive of Kumagusu Minakata and reserves a memory of his whole works. There is also a place for observing specimens of myxomycetes as usual in his life. Next to this archive is Kumagusu Minakata’s ex-home. You can see a big camphor tree (Cinnamomum camphoraクスノキ), which is in Japanese described as “K(g)usu”. On his persimmon (Diospyros kakiカキノキ) in his garden, he revealed a new species of myxomycetes, Minalatella longifila. It was one of the first myxomycetes that was reported as living on living materials, not decayed materials. There is also a tree of chinaberry (Melia azedarachセンダン), which Kumagasu Minakata is said to mention in his last words as “purple flowers in my ceiling”.
Although the quantities of exhibitions are in total not so many, it was a fruitful visit if you have some senses to observe anything in this world.
