Animal grossology - Museum takes undignified look at animals

CHICAGO

nimal Grossology," the new exhibition at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, could easily have been a lot grosser.

Sure, there's plastic excrement in the exhibit room, skunk scent for spritzing, and robot animals that use cutesy terms like "barf" and "dookie" while talking about hairballs and digestive tracts. It's a 10-year-old's dream.

But the exhibition is also built in a way adults can stomach, even after a hearty breakfast. And the younger visitors are learning something.

The animal smells are left to the visitor's discretion; in small squeeze-bottle atomizers. And most aren't too offensive. The chemical used by one cockroach variety to recognize fellow species members has a tang of maraschino cherries, and the musk deer's sexual attractant is a common perfume ingredient. The fox urine (for territorial marking) and the skunk scent (for defense) are a bit more intense, but still nothing to send the museum-goer running for the fresh outdoors.

The show is the work of Advanced Exhibits, a division of Advanced Animatronics of Bloomfield Hills, Mich. It's based on the second in a popular series of science books for children by author Sylvia Branzei, who coined the word "grossology" for the gleeful study of bodily functions.

Branzei, a former teacher and microbiologist, believes children learn best when they are taught in their own language. And that's what the exhibition uses.

It's a successor to "Grossology: The (Impolite) Science of the Human Body," an exhibition that drew large crowds to the Notebaert several years ago.

"We weren't the first museum to have the original 'Grossology,' but we were the first in a major market," said Notebaert director of exhibitions and design Mike Sarna. "It was so popular that we made sure that we were first in line for this one. Animal Grossology isn't as gross as the first exhibition, which had displays on snot and body odors," Sarna explained. "And besides, it's about animals, which puts everything at a greater remove, but we think there's enough grossness here to keep the kids interested -- and if they're interested, they'll learn some biology." Most of the displays have an animatronic beast or an interactive game as a centerpiece, with real animals displayed on video screens on the sides.

The "Blood Slurpers" display has large scale models of a tick, mosquito and leech sitting on a huge mock-up of a human arm. Using hand pumps, visitors can fill them with stage blood. Videos and audio tapes, meanwhile, give lessons on Lyme disease, West Nile virus and the medical use of leeches.

In another display, an outraged robot penguin finds the "calling cards" of several other zoo denizens on his otherwise clean ice and asks the viewers to help him match each pile with the perpetrator, using such clues as size and diet.

"The Slime Game" features a sea cucumber, snail and hagfish eel competing in a television game show for the title of world's slimiest creature, with the visitors casting the deciding votes.

Another display shows a life-size cow, chewing her cud, while a clear plastic bubble in her side reveals a mechanized model of her four-stomach digestive tract.

Nearby, a computer game allows viewers to dissect owl pellets and identify the owl's prey by pulling out the tiny bone fragments and reassembling them. There's also a display on cat hairballs and a huge animatronic housefly that sits on an enormous cookie and discusses (in the character of the late Rodney Dangerfield) his habit of regurgitating on his food to liquefy it.

A smaller separate display is devoted to the odd egg-protection behavior of certain species of frogs. There is also a 60-foot tapeworm.

The exhibition, which opened Oct. 8, will run through the end of the year at the Notebaert. A national tour is also planned.