National Museum's monster attractions unveiled

THE new-look National Museum of Scotland has unveiled the first glimpse of a stunning animal display set to become one of the star attractions when it fully re-opens next month after a £46.4 million overhaul.

Staff have installed a vast array of creatures swimming, flying, floating and gliding about in one of the new "Natural World" galleries that have been created during a three-year overhaul of the Victorian-era Royal Museum building.

Among the 44 new exhibits - a mix of taxidermy specimens and life-sized casts and models - are a great white shark, a giant squid, spider crabs, a killer whale and a hippo.

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The "Wildlife Panorama" is also set to showcase three giants of the ocean - the jawbones of a blue whale, a vast ocean sunfish, which normally weighs two tonnes, and the leatherback turtle, the biggest in the world.

Further details of the overhauled museum were revealed yesterday ahead of its long-awaited unveiling on 29 July.

The Natural World galleries will be accessed through a transformed grand gallery in the old Royal Museum building, which will now boast an 18-metre tall "Window on the World" feature, showcasing some 800 objects from the museum's collection.

Other highlights of the grand gallery include a 12,000-year-old giant deer skeleton, the statue of inventor James Watt that once sat in the Houses of Parliament, a Tahitian feast bowl and a Stevenson lighthouse dioptic lens.

Sixteen new galleries fitted out with 8,000 objects have been created to complement the existing displays in the museum's modern wing, which opened in 1998. Other new features include an upmarket 100-seat restaurant and a cafe overlooking the grand gallery.

The Natural World section, which covers three floors to the left of the grand gallery, will explore the evolution, diversity and abilities of animal species, and the story of extinct and endangered species, whether through man-made causes or by natural selection.

Staff said the animals that were being suspended had been chosen to reflect their natural habitat.

Dr Nick Fraser, keeper of natural sciences at the museum, said: "We are creating a fabulous animal array of flying and swimming creatures that is sure to delight and fascinate families and children of all ages."

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A spokeswoman for the museum said: "We have one of the few remaining museum taxidermy departments in the world, with true craftsmen presenting hundreds of stunning new specimens from all over the world, complimented by astonishing life-sized casts and models of species from throughout history and prehistory.

"The existing galleries in the modern building tell, for the most part, the story of Scotland and the Scots from prehistory through to the 20th century.

"The 16 new galleries are much more about Scotland's place and connections in the context of the wider cultural, political and natural world. Overall, the fully reopened National Museum of Scotland will tell our story with over 20,000 items displayed."

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