Exhibits based on After Man
1983 | 1984-1992 | 2020-2024 | 2021-2023

Zoology of the Future (1984-1992)

Zoology of the Future was a traveling museum exhibit adapted from Dougal Dixon's 1981 book After Man: A Zoology of the Future. It used dioramas and animatronics to portray the book's animals and environments. Developed by the Japanese exhibit design company NOMURA Co.,1 it went on display in Japan and the United States.

History

Little is known about the development of this exhibit, only that it was initially developed by NOMURA Co., a major exhibit design company in Japan.1,2 It was on display in Japan in 1984, debuting at the Shinjuku Keio Department Store,1 and then went on to tour the United States from 1985 to 1992.

After 1987, the original organizers found that the exhibit was failing to turn profits. The exhibit materials were sold to Dinamation, a company famous for making animatronic dinosaur statues for museums and zoos.3 In Dixon's words, they "turned it into a freak show".4 In the second half of 1991, the Desert Leaper and Night Stalker animatronics were on display at the San Diego Wild Animal Park (now the San Diego Zoo Safari Park), in an exhibit called The Wild Woods: From Dinos to Rhinos.5,6 This exhibit included numerous animatronic dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals created by Dinamation.5 The two future creatures were then reunited with the After Man exhibit material for a showing in the Science Museum of Western Virginia, which as far as I've found is the last time the exhibit was on display. After that, the animatronics were brought back to San Diego for the reopening of From Dinos to Rhinos in summer 1992. That closed on September 7.7 What happened to the animatronics, or any of the exhibit material, after Dinamation's collapse in the late 1990's/early 2000's is unknown, but it is known that many of Dinamation's animatronics (which weren't on loan at the time) ended up scrapped.

Chronology


Night Stalker diorama

Layout

The exhibit started with visitors walking through a "time tunnel", with light and sound effects simulating the travel back in time.2 Following this, a four-foot-tall globe on a pedestal showed what the continents would look like in 50 million years, accompanied by an audio recording of Dixon himself discussing evolution.9 19 miniature dioramas, arranged by biome, recreated the illustrations from the book. At the Shinjuku Keio Department Store, these were:1

The Wilmington Town Crier mentions the Zarander8 (possibly sharing the Turmi diorama?), and the newsletter of the California Academy of Sciences also mentions the Vortex11 (possibly sharing the Distarterops diorama?).

These dioramas were supplemented by videos, sounds, graphics, and the two animatronics.1,9 The Desert Leaper animatronic was nine feet long2 and six feet tall.11 It was placed in the Desert section at Shinjuku1 and at the entry of the exhibit in Boston, where a video demonstrated its movements and its ability to hydrate itself.9 In San Francisco, the Desert Leaper's display was littered with coins, from people trying to toss a coin into its mouth.13 The Night Stalker animatronic was outfitted with a speaker that played sound effects - evidently sourced from Gaira, one of the titular kaiju in the film War of the Gargantuas (1966).14 The Orlando Sentinel also mentioned an animatronic Woolly Gigantelope,12 which may have been a later addition by Dinamation, but I have found no independent confirmation of this third animatronic's existence.

At the end of the exhibit, at least when it was in Shinjuku, was a section called "Dr. Dixon's Laboratory". This area featured panels demonstrating the history of life, climate change, and how organisms evolve, as well as sketches, models, and documents relating to the development of the book.1 In Boston, a series of Dixon's pencil sketches (including the Ghole, Parashrew, Rundihorn, and Slobber) were displayed at the exhibit entrance, outside the Time Tunnel.8 In Denver, a postscript to the exhibit featured an illustration of Dixon's speculative human descendant, previously featured in the article "Visions of Man Evolved" for Omni Magazine.10

At the California Academy of Sciences, the exhibit filled the Hohfeld and Lovell White Halls.11

Gallery

Images

Creatures

Promotional material and photos

Video

References

"I found myself repeatedly glancing behind me to the life-size model of the Giant Desert Leaper (Had it moved? Were its eyes in a different position? Was it ready to pounce?) I felt only marginally assured that the Leaper is an herbivore (plant-eater). It might like a change of diet, after all."
Jim Rouillard, 19868
  1. Promotional poster for Zoology of the Future (front, back), 1984.
  2. "Big Summer Show Takes Visitors to a World 50 Million Years Away In "Zoology of the Future" Opening June 5". The Academy Newsletter June 1986: 1.
  3. Gibson, W. (1992). "Dinamation exhibit lets you take a step into the future". The Roanoke Times January 17, Metro Edition: E-10.
  4. Dixon, D. (2021). After Man: A Zoology of the Future [2021 deluxe edition]. Breakdown Press.
  5. Anonymous (1991). "Prehistoric Life". Pioneer 2(1): B8.
  6. "Wild Animal Park 1991". YouTube. Uploaded by rdgem, October 28, 2020.
  7. Brown, M. (1992). "Return Trip: Wild Animal Park Still Has Things to Teach, Learn". Los Angeles Times.
  8. Rouillard, J. (1986). "Creating pictures of the future". Wilmington Town Crier 31(42): S-1–S-3.
  9. Garvey, J. (1986). "Evolving: Science Museum show forecasts peek 'after man'". The Winchester Star 107(1): 3B-4B.
  10. Accola, J. (1987). "Animal life of the future - after Homo sapiens". Chicago Tribune.
  11. "A Look 50 Million Years Into the Future". The Academy Newsletter July-August 1986: 2.
  12. "Creature feature stops in Orlando". Orlando Sentinel. January 22, 1989.
  13. seadrinker, Speculative Evolution Forum, July 11, 2008.
  14. Springtrapattacks, Reddit, August 17, 2018.
If you have information, pictures, or videos of this exhibit that are not included here, please email me.