The Meguro Parasitological Museum: Gross, but You Can't Look Away

Salut! It's Yoko, a food blogger who is afraid of bugs in general, parasites included.

The other day I visited the Meguro Parasitological Museum, a place only those in the know have heard of.

It's about an 11-minute walk from Meguro Station to the Meguro Parasitological Museum

The museum is a fairly short walk from Meguro Station, along Meguro-dori.

It's a museum, so I assumed there would be an admission fee, but it's actually free!

Hours: 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM. Closed Mondays, Tuesdays and the New Year holidays
*If a Monday or Tuesday is a national holiday, the museum opens and closes on the nearest weekday instead
Admission: free (donations welcome)

Group visits are possible with advance booking (reserve through the official website).

Taking my time, I spent about an hour looking around.

Highlights of the Meguro Parasitological Museum

The museum has two floors.

The first floor is packed with parasites preserved in formalin,

and you can learn the basics about parasites.

On the second floor there are models of parasites enlarged thousands of times, and you can learn about the history of humans and parasites.

The museum's most famous exhibit, an 8.8 m tapeworm, is on this floor too...!

Some of the parasites on display came from Sachū Yamaguchi, a parasitologist.

Apparently Mr. Yamaguchi discovered more than 1,400 species of parasites in his lifetime...

Believing his research would still be useful 100 years later, he had painters leave detailed sketches of the parasites. He made an enormous contribution to humankind.

First-floor highlights

I was surprised at how crowded it was inside.

Students, couples and foreign tourists: the museum isn't that big, but I think there were about 30 people.

The first floor has detailed explanations of parasites on display, so you can learn a lot.

The English word "parasite" comes from the Greek para (beside) and sitos (food).

They don't need to walk around or protect themselves from enemies, so their bodies are soft and their limbs and eyes have degenerated.

Hearing this, I doubt I was the only one who thought it sounds a bit like someone who never leaves home and doesn't work...

Some parasites have to pass through quite a few hosts (the creatures they live on) before they reach their final adult form, while others become adults right away.

The metacercaria here, for example, is one that has to move between hosts.

It has the terrifying ability to live in an ant's head and control its behavior, making it freeze on top of a blade of grass so that the ant gets eaten by a cow...

This is the pinworm (right), familiar from Japan's school pinworm tests.

Hardly anyone gets infected these days.

Fleas and lice are parasites too.

I always thought of them as just small bugs, but now that you say it, they're parasites...

A crab that was parasitized by a rhizocephalan barnacle and castrated.

When parasites get in, an eel's body apparently becomes lumpy.

This is a tick (right), a famous one. It looks like a chestnut, but it's one that sucked human blood in Hamamatsu...

The way it swells is way too creepy...

A medai (Japanese butterfish) with white things coming out of its eye (right). Scary.

From the left: a goldfish with an enlarged kidney, a slice of yellowtail with white spots, and a halfbeak with parasites in its gills.

This combo might finish me off...

A sweetfish (ayu) with parasites in its organs, and a tainoe (a parasitic isopod) that lives in the mouth of a sea bream.

By the way, sweetfish almost always carry parasites, so be careful not to eat them raw.

A kawamutsu (pale chub) with the parasitized spots clearly visible as black dots (left).

By the time I'd finished the first floor, I was already down to 1 life point...

But I bravely made my way upstairs...

Second-floor highlights

The enlarged models right at the top of the stairs.

A mite and a mosquito at 1,000 times their size are just too scary. I really almost cried.

A human chest and eyeball with parasites.

The white thing coming out of the chest isn't surgical thread. It's a parasite...

Parasites that can seriously damage the skin.

Anisakis, familiar from horse mackerel, Pacific saury, flounder, sea bream and more.

I once found one in a cod I'd bought for hot pot, and I was down in the dumps for a while...

And finally, the one you've all been waiting for (?), the Japanese broad tapeworm! The 8.8 m tapeworm.

It's incredibly long, but the head is very small. It starts out the size of a clipped thumbnail, and in three months it grows to this, apparently.

I got to hold an 8.8 m string and feel how long it is, lol.

Think about who to go with, and when

So that was a quick tour of the highlights. What did you think...

It's gross, but for some reason you find yourself looking closely, and by the end I felt a bit down, lol.

The foreign tourists kept saying "disgusting...", but they were looking closely too, lol.

The whole museum has that kind of odd atmosphere, lol.

That day I lost the nerve to eat raw fish, so be careful about when you go!

Small children might cry at the 1,000-times-size mites, so it might be better for upper elementary school age and up...?

Even among adults, I recommend going with someone you can say "that was gross, but I learned a lot" to and have fun with, lol.

So that was the Meguro Parasitological Museum, a slightly unusual place to go out. Until next time. Au revoir!