A big opportunity to feel small: colossal creatures descending on UK in giant exhibition

To coincide with World Environment Day, Birmingham Museums and National Museums Scotland are delighted to announce the UK debut of Giants, a spectacular touring exhibition developed by the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences and toured by Nomad Exhibitions.

Press images are available here.

This immersive showcase of giant prehistoric animals will open at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery on 2 August 2025, before travelling to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh in January 2026.​

Giants invites visitors on a journey through time, from 66 million years ago to the present day, to encounter the awe-inspiring creatures that roamed the Earth after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

The exhibition features life-sized 3D models and nearly complete skeletons, including the formidable Otodus megalodon, the mightiest shark of all time, the Mammuthus primigenius or woolly mammoth, weighing in at between six and eight tons with long thick fur and imposing tusks and Gigantopithecus blacki, an Asian primate comparable in size to three orangutans.

Interactive elements allow visitors of all ages to step into the shoes of palaeontologists and biologists, engaging with the scientific processes behind fossil discovery and reconstruction.

Immersive projections transport audiences into the natural habitats of these colossal beings, providing context to their existence and eventual extinction.

New giants have emerged since, such as elephants, rhinoceroses and whales, but they are now too under threat of extinction.

The exhibition also serves as a poignant reminder of nature’s fragility and the urgent need to protect these animals for future generations.

The announcement of the exhibition’s arrival coincides with World Environment Day on 5 June, which this year is focused on ending plastic pollution.

Zak Mensah and Sara Wajid, co-chief executives of Birmingham Museums Trust, said:

“We are delighted to welcome the Giants exhibition to Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. This inspiring installation not only captures the imagination with its monumental scale but also delivers a vital message about sustainability and our shared responsibility to protect the planet.

“Birmingham Museums is committed to using storytelling to engage communities with the challenges of our time and Giants does exactly that in a powerful and accessible way.”

Dr Nick Fraser, Keeper of Natural Sciences at National Museums Scotland, said:

“We’re really looking forward to bringing Giants to Scotland next year. Popular attention on prehistoric life tends to focus either on dinosaurs or on our own earliest human ancestors, which leaves a relatively neglected gap of around 60 million years of natural history.

“Giants is a striking invitation to us all to think about that period, to see how nature adapts over time, and also to reflect on the ways in which current human activity is denying that time to today’s endangered giants.”

Exhibition details:

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery: Opening August 2025

National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh: 31 January – 14 September 2026