A visitor reads up on reindeer at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum.

From the poles to the equator, animals of every size, shape and style will be on display in "Animal World," a dazzling new exhibition at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum from next Thursday.

They won't be on the move, these 186 animals - but then neither will the visitors from Shanghai.

"Local people will be able to see a huge collection of animals from all around the world without traveling," Zuo Huanchen, the Museum's Chairman, said Wednesday.

All of the animals, specially mounted and preserved, were donated by Kenneth Behring, Chairman of the non-profit Wheelchair Foundation, and the museum's experts have displayed them all in their natural surroundings.

That means visitors can find themselves anywhere in the world from the home of those Christmas reindeer, the frozen Arctic, to the African Plateau, home to elephants and lions.

The animals include Chinese pandas, Nile crocodiles, African lions, elephants, giraffes, rhinoceroses, snow leopards, polar bears and American badgers.

Visitors will also see some of the weirder creatures on the planet and their environments like the African termites and a termite mound, the giant Australian earthworm and the bizarre sloth.

The exhibition offers bilingual notes and descriptions of the lives of the animals.

In the frozen north section visitors can learn how the giant walrus and polar bears survive the freezing temperatures.

In the marsupial section, the difference between marsupials like the kangaroo and placentals such as human beings is explained.

The museum's curators have spent three years importing, designing and arranging the specimens.

The museum estimates the 186 animals are worth US$15 million.