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The Pacific coast features a humid subtropical climate that experiences milder winters with occasional snowfall and hot, humid summers because of the southeast seasonal wind. The mountains of the Chūgoku and Shikoku regions shelter the Seto Inland Sea from seasonal winds, bringing mild weather year-round. The northernmost region, Hokkaido, has a humid continental climate with long, cold winters and very warm to cool summers. The climate of Japan is predominantly temperate but varies greatly from north to south. It has the 17th highest natural disaster risk as measured in the 2016 World Risk Index.
The culture of Japan is well known around the world, particularly its popular culture as expressed in animation, art, comics, cuisine, fashion, films, music, television, theater, and video games. Widely considered a great power and the only Asian member of the G7, it maintains one of the world’s strongest militaries but has constitutionally renounced its right to declare war. Since the collapse of the Japanese asset price bubble in the early 1990s, it has experienced a prolonged period of economic stagnation referred to as the Lost Decades. It underwent rapid economic growth in the following decades and became one of the first major non-NATO allies of the U.S.
EX Extinct EW Extinct in the Wild CR Critically Endangered EN Endangered VU Vulnerable NT Near Threatened LC Least Concern Oak Toad Oarfish Ocean Perch Ocean Pout Ocean Whitefish Oceanic Whitetip Shark Ocellated Turkey Ocelot Octopus Oenpelli python Oilfish Okapi Old English Sheepdog Old House Borer Oleander Hawk Moth Olingo Olive Baboon Olive python Olive Sea Snake Olm Olympic Marmot Onagadori Chicken Onager Opabinia Opah Opaleye (Rudderfish) Opossum Oranda Goldfish Orange Baboon Tarantula Orange Dream Ball Python Orange Roughy Orange Spider Orange Tanager (Orange-Headed Tanager) Orange-Crowned Warbler Orangutan Orb Weaver Orchard Oriole Orchid Dottyback Oregon Spotted Frog Ori-Pei Oribi Oriental Cockroach Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher Orinoco Crocodile Ornate Bichir Ornate Black-Tailed Rattlesnake Ornate Box Turtle Ornithocheirus Ornithomimus Ortolan Bunting Oscar Fish Osprey Ostracod Ostrich Otter Otterhound Ovenbird Oviraptor Owl Owl Butterfly Owlfly (Ascalaphidae) Ox Oxpecker Oyster Oyster Toadfish Ozark Bass Major animal paintings include Albrecht Dürer’s 1515 The Rhinoceros, and George Stubbs’s c. Some medicines such as the cancer drug trabectedin are based on toxins or other molecules of animal origin.

• Other animals may have very specific feeding behaviours, such as hawksbill sea turtles which mainly eat sponges.
• The period is characterized by the appearance of a nascent literary culture with the completion of the Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (720), as well as the development of Buddhist-inspired artwork and architecture.
• The name “Japan” is based on Min or Wu Chinese pronunciations of 日本 and was introduced to European languages through early trade.
• Animals (or Metazoa) are living creatures with many cells that make up the kingdom Animalia.
• Despite their morphological dissimilarity with all other animals, genetic evidence suggests sponges may be more closely related to other animals than the comb jellies are.

The Jinshin War of 672, a bloody conflict between Prince Ōama and his nephew Prince Ōtomo, became a major catalyst for further administrative reforms. The true aim of the reforms was to bring about greater centralization and to enhance the power of the imperial court, which was also based on the governmental structure of China. It nationalized all land in Japan, to be distributed equally among cultivators, and ordered the compilation of a household registry as the basis for a new system of taxation.

Life styles

Kumi-daiko (ensemble drumming) was developed in post-war Japan and became very popular in North America. The popular folk music, with the guitar-like shamisen, dates from the 16th century. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is considered the oldest extant Japanese narrative.

• Japan ranked seventh in the world in tonnage of fish caught and captured 3,167,610 metric tons of fish in 2016, down from an annual average of 4,000,000 tons over the previous decade.
• The earliest works of Japanese literature include the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki chronicles and the Man’yōshū poetry anthology, all from the 8th century and written in Chinese characters.
• Animals such as the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster serve a major role in science as experimental models.
• Nippon, the original Sino-Japanese reading of the characters, is favored for official uses, including on Japanese banknotes and postage stamps.
• Japan has close economic and military relations with the United States, with which it maintains a security alliance.
• Japan is widely considered to be a great power due to its economic power and political, cultural, and military influence.
• Most appear to belong to two major lineages, the protostomes and the deuterostomes.

The country hosted the official 2006 Basketball World Championship and co-hosted the 2023 Basketball World Championship. Super GT is the most popular national racing series in Japan, while Super Formula is the top-level domestic open-wheel series. Green tea is produced in Japan and prepared in forms such as matcha, used in the Japanese tea ceremony.
Since 1973, all elderly persons have been covered by government-sponsored insurance. People without insurance through employers can participate in a national health insurance program administered by local governments. Payment for personal medical services is offered through a universal health insurance system that provides relative equality of access, with fees set by a government committee. Other minority religions include Hinduism, Judaism, and Baháʼí Faith, as well as the animist beliefs of the Ainu. Throughout the latest century, Western customs originally related to Christianity, including Western style weddings, Valentine’s Day and Christmas, have become popular as secular customs among many Japanese.

Spinner Shark

The scarab beetle was sacred in ancient Egypt, and the cow is sacred in Hinduism. People have used hunting dogs to help chase down and retrieve animals, and basswin birds of prey to catch birds and mammals, while tethered cormorants have been used to catch fish. The protostomes include the Ecdysozoa, named after their shared trait of ecdysis, growth by moulting, Among the largest ecdysozoan phyla are the arthropods and the nematodes. The remaining animals, the great majority—comprising some 29 phyla and over a million species—form the Bilateria clade, which have a bilaterally symmetric body plan.

Numbers and habitats of major phyla

For example, adult echinoderms are radially symmetric (unlike their larvae), while some parasitic worms have extremely simplified body structures. Many bilaterian phyla have primary larvae which swim with cilia and have an apical organ containing sensory cells. They also have a gut that extends through the basically cylindrical body from mouth to anus. Many bilaterians have a combination of circular muscles that constrict the body, making it longer, and an opposing set of longitudinal muscles, that shorten the body; these enable soft-bodied animals with a hydrostatic skeleton to move by peristalsis.

Modern era

It is thought to be one of the earliest predators, catching small prey with its nematocysts as modern cnidarians do. The apparent suddenness of the event may however be an artefact of the fossil record, rather than showing that all these animals appeared simultaneously. The first body fossils of animals appear in the Ediacaran, represented by forms such as Charnia and Spriggina.

Japan is the second highest-ranked Asian country in the 2025 Global Peace Index. Japan has close economic and military relations with the United States, with which it maintains a security alliance. Statutory law originates in the legislature, and the constitution requires that the emperor promulgate legislation passed by the Diet without giving him the power to oppose legislation.