Animals Inside Out

Natural History Exhibition - Animals Inside Out 

6^th April – 16^th September

Over Easter while is was in London I went to see the Animals inside out exhibition at the National History Museum. The exhibition exposes the detailed muscle structure and entwining veins under animals’ skins, from a tiny frog to a humongous elephant. It was really interesting, allowing you to discover the ins and outs of 

Each animal’s anatomy, from the nerves to the muscles and how each species varies from another.

To preserve the intricate blood systems within the animals, coloured liquid resin is injected in the main arterial network. When the surrounding tissue is removed from the animal a perfect structure of vessels is revealed. This insight into the animals blood system is truly breath taking. It looks so unreal; you have to keep reminding yourself this is really what is under animal’s skin.

Until this exhibition I had never heard of Plastination. This is a fairly new method, (1977), of preservation created by Dr Gunther von Hagens. Plastination is the extraction of all water and fatty tissues from the specimen and replacing them with polymers in a vacuum. This stops the natural decay of body parts and allows scientists to study the subjects for long periods of time; it is also odourless which makes the process a lot pleasanter.

What I found most interesting were the animals that were sliced into very thin layers. In particular the giant giraffe, in the middle of one of the main rooms, was cut into about 50 pieces. You were able to get very close and examine the transparent pieces; looking at them individually, or from below so you can see all the layers together.

The thin layers of blood and muscles formed intricate patterns, which were very beautiful and to me looked more like a piece of artwork than a body part.

Dotted around the walls in the exhibition were microscopic photographs of animals sliced in half. Theses photographs are incredible and look just like drawings. The detail is truly amazing and it does look like a wafer thin slice taken from inside the animal.