RCI approached one of the NHMAD’s early consultants, Professor Phil Manning (now the museum’s director of science), with an unusual question: would Abu Dhabi like a blue whale? Abu Dhabi had a little more than two. “The skull of the whale is so huge that it’s bigger than the opening of any of our doors,” says McAlester. Until she got on that last flight, everybody was holding their breath.”When the whale landed in Abu Dhabi, McAlester was waiting on the tarmac. Now suspended in the museum’s soaring ‘Our World’ gallery, the whale has become both anchor and emblem for the institution.