A new Earth Day-inspired exhibit called "Wrought Taxonomies" will feature more than 20 animal sculptures made from wire and steel throughout the grounds at the Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium. The exhibit opens on April 22 for a year:

Wendy Klemperer and Paul Rubery hoist an African-crested porcupine from the back of Klemperer’s pickup truck, trying not to be pricked by the animal’s long, sharp quills. They clamber out of the truck and carry it to a spot on the grounds of the Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium in Centerport.

It’s not a live porcupine being set free in the great outdoors — it’s one of more than 20 sculptures Klemperer created from found rebar, steel and wire that will be part of the museum’s first outdoor exhibition. It opens April 22, in time for Earth Day, and will remain in place for a year.

Other sculptures include a red fox, a kudu (African antelope) and a maned wolf, and mythological creatures such as a Cerberus (a three-headed dog) and a Pegasus (a winged stallion). “There will be sculptures situated in every scenic view,” says Rubery, director of curatorial affairs at the museum. Silhouettes of marine life will be suspended from the trees on the museum’s mile-long Solar System Trail through the woods, including a lionfish, an octopus and a shark.

WHEN | WHERE Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium, 180 Little Neck Rd., Centerport

COST Included with museum admission of $10 per adult, $9 seniors (age 62 plus) and students with ID, $7 for children 12 and under, and free for military & children under 2.

INFO 631-854-5579, vanderbiltmuseum.org.