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The okapi, only discovered by scientists in the 1900s, is an elusive animal, adept at avoiding predators and difficult to spot in the wild. So is the mooncalf, a nocturnal creature that emerges from its burrow only when the moon rises, created by JK Rowling in Harry Potter.
Fantastic Beasts The Wonder of Nature at Melbourne Museum. Credit: Eugene Hyland
The world of fiction owes much to the real world - and a new show opening at Melbourne Museum on Friday plays with the cross-over between the two.
Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature was created by London’s Natural History Museum together with Warner Bros and combines stories about actual and fantastical creatures, in a move to entice visitors in the door and educate them at the same time.
Real specimens from the acclaimed London museum sit alongside creatures such as the Mooncalf and the Erumpent, which audiences will know from the Harry Potter books and films. It’s magical and theatrical, set in darkened rooms that come alive to reveal their contents, with videos allowing you to virtually engage with various beasts, the moodiness added to by strange animal sounds and interactive elements like doors and drawers that open to reveal and activate different things.
Director of the Natural History Museum, Dr Doug Gurr says it’s all about magic. “You’ve got this extraordinarily popular wizarding world that’s had incredible cut-through and we thought let’s use that as a way of bringing people in to see us... then we show them the real world is even more magical.”
Natural History Museum’s Doug Gurr in the Fantastic Beasts: the Wonder of Nature exhibition space. Credit: Eugene Hyland
Science is always at the forefront of the show, with insights into how we came up with mythological animals such as the unicorn - narwhal tusks were found, for example, and the creature they belonged to imagined. Mermaids and sirens too - selkies in Irish folklore - are thought to be based on manatees floating at sea, and possibly inspired by whale song, which sounded like women singing.
Divided into three parts, the first part of Fantastic Beasts is largely devoted to mythical creatures and what inspired them, the second showcases magical behaviours from the real world - camouflage and symbiosis for example - while the third focuses on conservation and the animals and ecosystems under threat today.
Gurr defines the museum’s mission as being an advocate for the planet. “Inspiring people to care about the natural world and to care enough to want to do something to protect it.”