Visit the only museum in the world devoted entirely to parasites

Free, and there is an 8.8 metre tapeworm

The only one on EarthFree

Glass jar with preserved parasitic specimen and Japanese museum label — Syced · CC0

Cylindrical specimen jar holding preserved parasitic worm with collection label — Syced · CC0

Museum display jar containing segmented parasitic specimen with handwritten documentation — Syced · CC0

Grid of preserved parasitic specimens mounted on individual laboratory slides — Syced · CC0

Organized collection cards displaying multiple preserved parasitic specimens and labels — Syced · CC0

The Meguro Parasitological Museum is a private research institution in Meguro, founded in 1953 by Dr Satoru Kamegai. Two small public floors sit on top of a working collection.

Why it's unique

It is the only museum anywhere dedicated exclusively to parasites. Not a parasitology wing of a natural history museum, an entire institution.

The object everyone comes for is a Diphyllobothrium nihonkaiensis tapeworm, 8.8 metres long, displayed whole in a single case. Beside it hangs a length of white rope cut to the same measurement, so you can walk its length rather than read the number. It came out of a person.

Before you go

It is free and it is private, taking no government money, so the donation box by the door is doing real work. Leave something.

It is genuinely small. An hour is plenty, and it pairs naturally with a walk down to the Meguro river rather than being a day in itself.

The gift shop is the reason half the visitors come back out smiling: T-shirts, and keyrings with actual specimens set in acrylic.

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