Chonosuke Okamura

Chonosuke Okamura (岡村 長之助, Okamura Chōnosuke) was a Japanese amateur palaeontologist. When he was in his late 70s, he claimed to have discovered fossils from the Silurian period of miniature animals, ranging from dinosaurs to humans, and more than one thousand other extinct "mini-species", each less than 0.25 mm in length.[1][2][3] He claimed that "There have been no changes in the bodies of mankind since the Silurian period... except for a growth in stature from 3.5 mm to 1,700 mm."[3]

Chonosuke Okamura
Born	June 2, 1901
Died	1990s(?)
Nationality	Japanese
Occupation	Medical doctor
Known for	pseudoscience paleontology
Notable work	presentations of claims he discovered miniature dinosaurs and humans in the fossil record

In the 1970s he visited Japan's paleontology conference several times and applied to present his findings. It was rumored that in 1978 an elderly paleontologist who walked into Okamura's lecture became so angry that he suffered from high blood pressure and died prematurely.[4] Eventually the paleontology conference changed its rules to ban amateurs and Okamura petitioned overseas colleges, finally publishing his research himself in 1983. He was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for his work in 1996.[5]

References

1. Okamura, C., 1980. Period of the Far Eastern minicreatures. Original Report of the Okamura Fossil Laboratory, 14: 165-346.
2. Okamura, C., 1987. New facts: homo and all vertebrata were born simultaneously in the Former Paleozoic in Japan. Original Report of the Okamura Fossil Laboratory, 15, pp.347-573.
3. Spamer, Earle E. "Chonosuke Okamura, Visionary". Annals of Improbable Research. 6 (6). Archived from the original on 2015-11-18. Retrieved 2011-06-21.
4. 金子 [Kaneko], 隆一 [Ryuichi] (1993), 新恐竜伝説 [New dinosaur legend] (in Japanese), 早川書房、[Hayakawa], p. 62.
5. Abrahams, Marc (2004-03-16). "Tiny tall tales: Marc Abrahams uncovers the minute, but astonishing, evidence of our fossilised past". The Guardian. London.

• Berenbaum, May (2009). The earwig's tail: a modern bestiary of multi-legged legends. Harvard University Press. pp. 72–73. ISBN 978-0-674-03540-9.
• Conner, Susan; Kitchen, Linda (2002). Science's most wanted: the top 10 book of outrageous innovators, deadly disasters, and shocking discoveries. Most Wanted. Brassey's. p. 93. ISBN 1-57488-481-6.