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Eeew! Aww! GROSS!

There's no doubt that's what your reaction will be to "Animal Grossology," a new exhibit at MOSI. But here's what else you'll likely say: I LOVE IT!

By WILLIAM HARVEY, Times X-Team
Published February 6, 2006

[Times photo: Stefanie Boyar]

One section of “Animal Grossology” features an animated fly that discusses his eating habits, including how he vomits his digestive acids onto solid foods to turn them into liquid. Lunch anyone?

TAMPA - "Animal Grossology" just oozed out of its shell and plopped into Tampa's Museum of Science and Industry. The exhibit is all about animals' gross habits and body functions.

I was grossed out, and that was a great thing. While some exhibits were disgusting, I liked that they were overflowing with scientific facts. My favorite was the slime game because the slimy contestants came to life through audio-animatronics.

From beginning to end I found "Grossology" to be thrilling, exciting and interesting. It's hard to believe that 3,500 square feet of gross wasn't enough for this kid. That's my only complaint: I left wanting more.

From beyond the world of yuck comes belched frog babies, dissected owl vomit and various forms of animal waste.

As soon as you walk in, you are surrounded by splashes of color and lifelike animation. Audio-animatronics help you play interactive games, learn and have a great time. The exhibits are high quality and right off the pages of the book Animal Grossology by Sylvia Branzei. So go on in and stick your nose in it.

You must be prepared to become one with the grossness. You will push an 8-foot ball of dung in an uphill race against other dung beetles, then suck and pump enough blood to fill a watermelon-sized tick, a balloon-sized leech and a football-sized mosquito. There is a bonus at this exhibit: While pumping, you create the sound of a heart beating.

In a slime pageant, you can be a judge to determine the slimiest of all slimy creatures. Determining "who flung doo" is your task in the Who Dooed It? section. Looking through a poop finder, your job is to match the poop with the correct animal's tush.

The see-through cow display takes you into the four chambers of a cow's stomach. You'll hear a cow burp, watch food twist and churn on its journey through the digestive tract and end with a tail-lifting "toot."

Then there's the Mystery Scents game, the "Grossology" version of scratch and sniff. You squeeze a bottle, sniff, then guess the scent. Believe me, it's no bed of roses.

In Transfusion Confusion, you are a medical adviser guessing what color a certain animal's blood is: blue, red, white or clear. A hit with the under-6 crowd (because it's too tight a fit for anyone bigger) is the Submarine Eel exhibit. Entering a miniature submarine, preschoolers can go into a porthole that turns into an adventurous journey through an eel's digestive track and ends with a long slide out the eel's mouth.

"It's pretty gross but I like it," said 10-year-old Jacob Dixon, who is homeschooled and in the fifth grade. "It is actually pretty cool."

Kaitlin Martin, 9, a fourth-grader at Sunray Elementary School in Holiday, said she found a way to make the blood-pumping tick exhibit even grosser. "If you pump it hard enough, it will splatter inside the tick. The material is clear so you can see through the skin to the blood."

Just outside the "Grossology" room is the "Grossology" quiz where you test yourself in a game show setting. Facing a large screen flashing questions, you have 10 seconds to answer multiple choice questions. "What is the study of poop?" (It's scatology.)

Besides Animal Grossology, Branzei is the author of Grossology, Grossology and You and Hands-On Grossology. Branzei says that she loves the exhibit. "You know how you imagine something and how it will look," she said, "well, this came out better than I imagined."

Branzei's favorite part of the exhibit is the slime game. When asked what grosses her out, she said she doesn't usually tell, but she leaned in close and whispered this: "Loogies - it's the whole loogie thing."

Yes, that's gross, just like this exhibit.

- William Harvey, 10, is in the fourth grade at Chiles Elementary School in Tampa.

"Animal Grossology" will show at Kids In Charge! The Children's Science Center at MOSI through April 1 and is included with admission: $15.95, adults; $13.95, adults older than 60; $11.95, ages 2 to 12. Children younger than 2 are admitted free. The museum is at 4801 E Fowler Ave., Tampa. For more information, call 813 987-6100 or go to www.mosi.org/animalgrossology.html

[Last modified February 3, 2006, 10:52:04]