Animal feats celebrated ahead of Olympics
RECORD-breakers from the animal kingdom will be celebrated at the National History Museum at Tring ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Animal Record-Breakers takes place on February 6 and families can discover animal champions and runners-up, take part in fun activities and games.
Test your target practice skills against those of the famed archerfish, which can spit water 1.5 metres through the air to hit insects with deadly accuracy. If your hand-to-eye co-ordination doesn’t land you a medal finish, see if you can out-jump a kangaroo.
Visitors will also have the chance to see how they would look with a set of water buffalo horns, the longest horns grown by a living animal.
But it is not all about speed, strength and stamina – what about the animal with the loudest howl, the furthest migration or the deepest dive?
- humpback whales win the long-distance event by travelling more than 16,000 kilometres each year on the round trip from Costa Rica to Antarctica
- leatherback turtles take home gold for the deepest recorded dive made by a reptile, reaching depths of 1,200 metres
- male emperor moths are top of the podium for the most acute sense of smell – they can detect a female from almost 11 kilometres away
Alice Adams, interpretation and learning manager at the Natural History Museum at Tring, said: “Every four years we watch and marvel as our own species competes for Olympic gold, but the animals featured throughout the exhibition have adapted these amazing skills for survival, and some of the skills are sure to be surprising.”
The exhibition is based on the book Natural History Museum Animal Records by Mark Carwardine, which outlines the world record holders from each of the main animal groups including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes and invertebrates.
Admission to the museum on Akeman Street, Tring, is free and it is open from 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday and from 2pm to 5pm on Sundays. For more information, call 020 7942 6171 or visit www.nhm.ac.uk/tring.
