NEWS RELEASE: Sharks Makes its Peoria Debut May 25 at Peoria Riverfront Museum

PEORIA, Ill., May 20, 2024 – Sharks, the largest exhibition ever organized on the subject by the American Museum of Natural History, NY, opens May 25 and makes its debut in Peoria, presented by CEFCU. The Peoria Riverfront Museum was the first to sign on for the new exhibition’s international debut, as with the previous blockbuster T. rex: The Ultimate Predator.

Sharks brings visitors face to face with the vast diversity of sharks and reveals surprising facts about one of the ocean’s most magnificent and misunderstood species.

“With Sharks we are excited once again to be the first museum to have signed on for a major international exhibition’s inaugural tour, as we did with T. rex: The Ultimate Predator when we hosted its world-traveling debut from our long-time partner, the renowned American Museum of Natural History, New York,” said John Morris, Peoria Riverfront Museum president and CEO. “We’re grateful for the support of CEFCU and the Gilmore Foundation in presenting this major blockbuster exhibition.”

People have been intrigued by sharks for as long as we have been exploring the oceans. Fixed in the public imagination as toothy, fearsome predators, sharks are far more fascinating and complex than their depiction in popular culture. Sharks brings to life the incredible diversity of sharks with dozens of life-sized models, ranging from 33 feet to 5 inches long, and offers visitors a unique look at prehistoric and modern species, their habitats and hunting styles, and the conservation threats these spectacular animals face today.

Visitors to Sharks will explore the anatomy, diversity, and behavior of sharks and their relatives through encounters with tiger sharks, great whites, and other familiar favorites along with little-known animals such as the torpedo ray, the longnose chimaera, and the tiny dwarf lanternshark, which glows in the dark and is small enough to hold in your hand. Through dozens of life-sized models, fossil casts, touch-free interactives, and dynamic media presentations, Sharks reveals the many secrets of these top predators and demonstrates that while they pose few threats to people, we represent a serious danger to their future on the planet.

“The perception of sharks – that they are large, vicious predators to be feared – couldn’t be farther from the truth. Sharks and their relatives are an incredibly old, diverse group of organisms that are critical to maintaining the health of the ecosystems they inhabit. In fact, humans are much more of a threat to sharks than they are to us,” said John Sparks, curator in the Department of Ichthyology at the Museum and curator of Sharks. “We hope people walk away from this exciting exhibition with a new appreciation for sharks and understand they are magnificent creatures that should be revered, not feared.”

When we think of sharks, we may picture iconic species like the great white. But over the course of their nearly half a billion years on Earth, sharks have evolved into a stunning diversity of forms. Sharks explores this range through a “parade” of over two dozen life-sized shark models that spans the entire length of the exhibition. Media projections, video, and a 37-foot long, 10-foot tall projection screen unique to this exhibition highlight the diversity of sharks swimming in Earth’s waters today. Scenes in this installation and a portion of other footage throughout Sharks have been provided by Discovery’s Shark Week.

For over 30 years, Discovery’s Shark Week has been the home of captivating content about these majestic and misunderstood animals of the ocean,” said Nancy Daniels, Chief of Content, TBS, TNT & Discovery. “We are excited to give exhibition visitors an opportunity to feel like they are ‘swimming’ alongside these animals. At Discovery, our goal is to always create opportunities where the general public leave understanding more about these complex creatures than they did before. We are proud to be part of this exhibition.”

Sharks is presented by CEFCU. Sponsored by Gilmore Foundation, Ruby K. Worner Trust, and Carle Health. Additional support from Precision Planting, Simantel, and Corporate Visionary Society Council.

Sharks runs May 25 through September 2 at Peoria Riverfront Museum. More information about the exhibition can be found on the museum’s website at peoriariverfrontmuseum.org.

ABOUT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY (AMNH)

The American Museum of Natural History, founded in 1869 with a dual mission of scientific research and science education, is one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. The Museum encompasses more than 40 permanent exhibition halls, galleries for temporary exhibitions, the Rose Center for Earth and Space including the Hayden Planetarium, and the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation. The Museum’s scientists draw on a world-class permanent collection of more than 34 million specimens and artifacts, some of which are billions of years old, and on one of the largest natural history libraries in the world. Through its Richard Gilder Graduate School, the Museum offers two of the only free-standing, degree-granting programs of their kind at any museum in the U.S.: the Ph.D. program in Comparative Biology and the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Earth Science residency program. Visit amnh.org for more information.