Prehistoric giants exhibit set for summer opening

An exhibition featuring life-sized 3D models and partial skeletons of giant prehistoric animals will open this summer.

GIANTS, developed by the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, will display animals that roamed the Earth after the extinction of the dinosaurs 66m years ago.

Among them will be the Otodus megalodon, known as the mightiest shark of all time, the woolly mammoth, and the Gigantopithecus blacki – an Asian primate the size of about three orangutans.

The exhibition will open at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery on 2 August before travelling to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh in January.

Visitors will be able to learn about the processes behind palaeontology, including the methods around fossil discovery and reconstruction.

Organisers said there would also be immersive projections to transport audiences the natural habitat of the colossal lifeforms.

They said the exhibition served as a "poignant reminder of nature's fragility" and the urgent need to protect animals.

Zak Mensah and Sara Wajid, co-chief executives of Birmingham Museums Trust, said the "inspiring installation" captured the imagination with its "monumental scale" and delivered a vital message about sustainability.

Dr Nick Fraser, keeper of natural sciences at National Museums Scotland, said the exhibition helped to shine a light on creatures which existed in the "relatively neglected" period since the dinosaurs' extinction.

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