New Body Worlds exhibit takes you inside animals

The Body Worlds: Animals Inside Out exhibit runs at the Montreal Science Centre until Sept. 11.

A new exhibit at the Montreal Science Centre will take visitors into the anatomy of animals in a whole new way.

Body Worlds: Animals Inside Out features 50 animals representing 30 different species: everything from a sea snail all the way up to a giraffe. The point is to illustrate how the differences between different animals, including humans, are smaller than you’d think.

“The same bones are there, you know?” said Science Centre education chief Michel Groulx. “We have exactly the same bones, it’s just their shape, their length is different.”

The exhibit grew out of the original Body Worlds, which started 20 years ago and focused on human anatomy. The creators began receiving donations of animal remains and began the animal version in 2010.

The goal is “That people leave the exhibition with a sense of respect and appreciation for nature and these animals in particular,” said Body Worlds’ Creative Director Angelina Whalley. “Our goal is to always maintain or show the specimens in a very life-like position because they should tell us something about life and nature.”

All animals displayed died of natural causes and were donated to the exhibit.

“All the animals come from… aquariums, zoos, animal gardens or parks,” said Groulx.

They are preserved using a process called plastination where the tissue is preserved with a polymer and the body posed before the specimen hardens.

It took two years and 14,000 hours to preserve and pose the giraffe.

“The giraffe, as we know, has a very long neck,” said Groulx. “But did you know that it has the same number of vertebras in the neck as us?”

Animals Inside Out is open to the public through Sept. 11.