Progress of the vertebrate paleontology (VP hereafter) in Japan for last 40 years is reviewed in point of views of 1) increasing number of researchers, 2) discoveries of dinosaurs, Mesozoic mammals, and other fossils that were never known from Japan before mid-1970’s, 3) role of local museums and local governments, 4) development of new research technique using combination of fossil and biological data or carbon/oxygen isotopes, etc., and 5) new findings and studies in each field of VP. Number of researchers and scientific level of research are both increased by students who studied abroad in advanced countries of VP and those who studied VP in traditional universities in Japan. Dinosaur fossils had never been known from the present area of Japan up to late 1970’s, but the discoveries of dinosaurs triggered findings of mammals, tritylodont synapsid, lizards, choristderans, anurans of Cretaceous age, which were never known in Japan before late 1970’s. Excavation of large animals like elephants and dinosaurs costs a lot of money and time, and normal governmental grants or institutional supports are not enough in general. In such case, local governments occasionally support financially in Japan, and they eventually construct museums for continuing research and local education. Major new findings of each field of VP other than mentioned above include an Early/Middle Eocene mammal fauna from Kumamoto, an Early Miocene small mammal fauna from Gifu, cause of extinction of large mammals in the latest Pleistocene, many new genera and species of Oligocene and Miocene desmostylians, whales, and pinnipeds from Hokkaido and other areas, numerous papers of new findings of turtles, description of Futabasaurus, advancement of research on Utatsusaurus, description of penguin-like birds from Oligocene, and many new genera and species of Mesozoic and Cenozoic fishes.
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