Animal Inside Out exhibition at the Natural History Museum - in pictures

An exhibition opens on Friday 6 April at the Natural History Museum in London that reveals the internal workings of animals. The exhibits in Animal Inside Out were preserved using 'plastination' by the team behind Gunther von Hagens's famous Body Worlds exhibition. The exhibition runs until 16 September 2012

  • A plastinated Asian elephant, gorilla and giraffe. Plastination was invented by Dr von Hagens in 1977 and involves extracting all water and fatty tissues from the specimen and replacing them with polymers in a vacuum. It prevents decay and preserves the structure of internal soft tissues for display
    Animal Inside Out: A plastinated Asian elephant, gorilla and giraffe

  • A plastinated gorilla shows off its magnificent musculature
    Animal Inside Out: A plastinated gorilla

  • A porbeagle shark. During plastination a coloured liquid resin can be injected in the main arterial network. The surrounding tissue is then removed to reveal a highway of vessels
    Animal Inside Out: Shark

  • What could be worse than waking up next to a severed horse's head? Waking up next to a severed horse's head sliced into neat sections
    Animal Inside Out: A horses head sliced into sections

  • Plastination reveals the intricate network of arteries and capillaries that deliver oxygen within a horse's head
    Animal Inside Out: Horse

  • A bull frozen by plastination in mid-rampage
    Animal Inside Out: A plastinated bull

  • A bull's heart weighs about 2.25kg – five times heavier than a human heart. The coronary arteries run over the outside, with smaller vessels penetrating the muscular walls
    Animal Inside Out: Reindeer Heart

  • A plastinated billy goat. The museum says none of the animals in the exhibition was killed for the purposes of plastination. Animal Inside Out 'is aimed at adults and families with children over 8 years old but can be enjoyed by children of all ages'
    Animal Inside Out: A plastinated goat

  • The arteries in this rabbit deliver blood from the heart, repeatedly branching into smaller and smaller vessels until they reach every extremity as hair-like capillaries
    Animal Inside Out: Rabbit

  • A reindeer's heart
    Animal Inside Out: Reindeer

  • A plastinated Asian elephant. The powerful trunk is solid muscle
    Animal Inside Out: A plastinated Asian elephant

  • A plastinated giraffe revealing the muscles, trachea and oesophagus of that famous neck
    Animal Inside Out: A plastinated giraffe
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