Fantastic Beasts™: The Wonder of Nature at the ROM: A review

Hello and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind. However, today we are not tackling dinosaurs or even the Mesozoic for the most part. rather, we are delving into a different group of fantastical creatures, one from our own imaginations. The name?  Fantastic Beasts™: The Wonder of Nature.

On June 18 (after a week-long delay) I went to the Royal Ontario Museum for a temporary exhibit about mythical creatures and real ones and how they intersect, using Harry Po- sorry, the Wizarding World as inspiration, courtesy of She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-cuz-of-Issues-Beyond-Scope-Of-This. It's all told through both taxidermy specimens from the NHM, props from the movies, and replica models of the creatures.

The basic layout of it the exhibit goes like this: the first section is about mythical creatures of European Mythology and their inspirations, like how trading Narwhal tusks created Unicorns, or how manatees inspired unicorns. 

The second section is about various animal behaviours that are akin to the Wizarding World's original beasts, such as the Niffler and the Bowtruckle; there's also a ton of interactives with them, like with interacting with a lopping erumpent projection via a button. Depending on where you stand its either fun and interactive or gimmicky and uneducational. I generally think they're finely made and some do help communicate things like mating (erumpents) and defense (bowtruckles), although the Niffler's more in the latter category, which just has you temptt it with shiny crap.

Finally, the third and final section highlights real life conservation efforts of endagered species in the face of extinction, much like hero New Scamander's own efforts, through both looping videos and what has come before.

Oh, and the gift shop has some neat encyclopaedia and field guide-style books on mythical creatures, which 10-year old me would have killed for.

The exhibit hall was actually the museum's now-closed Sigmund Samuel Gallery of Canada. its pretty small and narrow, consisting of a single loop. The narrow and relatively small corridors do suit it well, with (possibly faux) wood panelling in the first section giving a very rustic old-school museum feel. The transitions between each section are also done as charming little huts. The rest are fairly generic halls of display cases and video screens and generally undecorated walls.

As for dinosaurs that would help be the bare minimum to be featured on Mesozoic Mind: The only dinosaur in the exhibit is Indianapolis' skeletal cast of Dracorex hogwartsia, which to this day is debated on whether its a legitimate genus or just as growth stage of Pachycephalosaurus, generally leaning to the latter. It's pretty clear it was only reason it's in because it was named after the school.

The other extinct animal a display for an Elasmotherium in the Unicorn section. While it does make a lot of sense, it is acknowledged thanks to recent 2021 study, the neck musculature couldn't have supported such a big horn, so it probably had at least a smaller one. There' also a taxidermy Caspian Tiger by the end (which you can seen in above photo), as part of the anti-extinction message, and I appreciate it.

A few miscellaneous criticism of The Wonders of Nature are:

• There are cabinets in the first section that open and roar via speaker, which are supposed to be escaping beasts but are just annoying and distracting.
• Some of the taxidermy specimens look a bit wrong and untreated up close.

Honestly, I feel that The Wonders of Nature often feels more like a flex of an IP then an actual science exhibit at times. Given this, I can't help but feel it's more suited for the Ontario Science Centre to the east, which also deals in such exhibits more then the ROM does.

Overall, Fantastic Beasts™ was a pretty good and fun exhibit, though I can't help but feel it could have done more with the premise, like delve further into the cultures that created them. Maybe even make this an in-universe exhibit in the Wizarding World discussing how Muggles perceive creatures perfectly real to them (so for instance, the signage would start with "Muggles think that...") and there would be living paintings of Newt.

• Exhibit Design - 8/10
• Information - 7/10
• Interpretives - 8/10
• Species Variety - N/A

See Also/Sources

• Titov V.V., Baigusheva V.S., Uchytel’ R.S. 2021. "The experience in reconstructing of the head of Elasmotherium (Rhinocerotidae)" Russian J. Theriol. Vol.20. No.2. P.173–182. doi: 10.15298/rusjtheriol.20.2.06