The Houston Museum of Natural Science's new exhibit Extreme Animals Alive brings a group of super heroes to the museum's basement. It's made up entirely of animals with extraordinary abilities, and some of them are truly remarkable.

Consider the humble sea cucumber, which can be seen in the museum's touch tank. The tank is so massive that it has to reside in the basement in order not to damage the floor. At first glance, sea cucumbers are not particularly interesting, looking like, well, cucumbers.

However, under the presentation of Nicole Temple, the museum's vice president of youth education, these echinoderms become alien anti-heroes worthy of a Marvel movie. Did you know that they are untraceable? If a scientist tries to implant a tracking device, dye, or any other monitoring the technology, the cucumber will simply expel it within hours. Also, if they can't find any food to eat with their suddenly-appearing Lovecraftian tentacles, they will start eating their own brain until another meal comes along.

That's just one example of why Temple frames her menagerie as a kind of educational Avengers. Each animal is presented with a massive, brightly-colored poster that resembles a comic book cover. Temple wrote all the captions, including several jokes, such as saying an animal's likes include harassing keepers and eating sand.

"I find that, if you approach things with grace and humor, it works better than just screaming facts at people," she said in an interview during a press preview. "The more people know about the natural world, the more likely they are to protect it. We want to make sure that people see the animals that are affected by cutting down trees and leaving plastic everywhere."

Extreme Animals Alive opens Friday, May 23, and will run for several months. However, it won't be a part of the permanent collection and requires an additional entrance fee between $20 and $35.

Currently, the entire basement area is being reconfigured into a child care center with an ocean theme that will host visitors from toddlers to grade schoolers. Eventually, it will include the space currently being utilized by the exhibit. Ultimately, the touch tank will remain, but there will also be craft labs and other places for younger visitors to learn and enjoy the museum.

  

Photo by Mike Rathke

Meet Eustace, a six-banded armadillo.

Until then, Extreme Animals Alive is a great chance to learn about the bioluminescence of the opossum, watch the frantic antics of fennec foxes, or try to spot all six of the mossy frogs camouflaged in their habitat. As the comic book aesthetic says, some of the ways animals have adapted are marvelous, from axolotls' regrowing limbs to the nigh-invincibility of the cockroach. It's a lighthearted, living tribute to overcoming nature's odds that should be fun for everyone.