Huge. Ancient. Intelligent. And swimming into a museum near you.

As the subject of the latest temporary exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, whales practically sell themselves.

“Everybody loves whales because they’re such cool animals,” said John Demboski, curator of vertebrate zoology at the museum. “They’re smart. They have language and dialects. They’re very social and usually live in family units. And they’re so huge: Some can weigh up to 190 or 200 tons.”

In “Whales: Giants of the Deep,” visitors can see just how huge. The exhibit, which opens Oct. 10 and runs through Feb. 16, features 20 whale skulls and skeletons alongside interactive video presentations, models, high-tech games, cultural artifacts and kid-friendly “exploration stations.”

The exhibit originally surfaced at New Zealand’s Te Papa Tongarewa museum in 2006 and has traveled leagues since then, including to a museum in Atlanta.

“Most of the (exhibit elements) came from Te Papa, but when our team visited in Atlanta we were looking for ways to make it more immersive, like you were going underwater into the world of the whales,” said Jill Katzenberger, onsite coordinator for museum programs.

Organizers are hoping for about 175,000 visitors to stream through “Whales,” which takes over 12,000 square feet of the new Phipps Gallery — formerly used for part of the “Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed” exhibit.

A stroll through the mostly finished “Whales” this week felt like floating through an enormous aquarium, with shimmering aqua lighting effects and pleasantly piped-in whale calls echoing throughout.

Visitors are first greeted by a huge blue maihi, or the frame of a traditional meeting house in Maori culture (New Zealand’s indigenous people). Some visitors may know the story of Paikea, the Maori figure on which the 2002 film “Whale Rider” is based. In fact, a 15-foot prop constructed for that film (the front portion of a “right whale”) also imposingly greets visitors.

The centerpiece is a 58-foot sperm whale skeleton that dwarfs everything around it. It’s made of real bones, and not for touching. Beneath it, kids can climb through a replica blue whale heart, which would weigh about 1,500 pounds if it were real.

“It’s a really good example of scale,” Katzenberger said. “This one organ is bigger than any one of us, because blue whales are the largest animals that have ever lived on the planet.”

Think of it this way: Human hearts are the size of our fists. Blue whale hearts are about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.

Even whale lovers might learn a thing or two. These animals, in a departure from the evolutionary path of many species, started as land-lovers that later became sea dwellers.

Much, much later.

“It’s a beautiful record that goes back 50 million years,” Demboski said. ” The evolution of whales is one of a land-based, wolf-like creature that actually had hooves to this aquatic lifestyle. What you see are traits and adaptations that led to this: a more eel-like body, the skulls getting telescopic, the back legs disappearing and the pelvis getting smaller and smaller. ”

It may be strange to think of whales once behaving more like seals or alligators — splitting their time between water and land — especially now that they can dive as deep as 7,000 feet underwater for up to an hour at a time.

Mind you, these are mammals that breathe the same air we do.

But knowing where they came from helps us understand where they’re going, which connects to the larger health of our oceans and planet. An exhibit section on whale strandings and human impact doesn’t exactly scream “Save the whales!” but its message is still clear.

Most commercial whaling operations ceased in the 1970s, but pollution and other factors continue to affect global whale populations (a sobering factoid: an estimated 300,000 whales die each year as a result of commercial fishing operations).

Treating whales with respect is also a priority for the exhibit’s installation team, many of whom traveled from New Zealand.

“A lot of them will stay through the opening,” Katzenberger said. “They believe some of the specimens are fully imbued with the spirit of the animal, so they act as caretakers and do a small ceremony to bless the bones and transfer the responsibility to us temporarily.”

The final stage of the exhibit is focused on the Maori and whaling cultures of New Zealand — a land tied closely to the fate of these massive creatures. Brutal-looking tribal weapons hewn from whalebone share space with delicate, decades-old ceremonial and ornamental items.

It’s another exotic fixture of an exhibit that museum officials believe will enthrall and educate Colorado’s otherwise landlocked populace.

“One thing we’d really like people to leave the exhibit with is that whales are mammals, not fish,” Demboski said. “And they’re a lot more closely related to us than you might think.”

“WHALES: GIANTS OF THE DEEP.” High-tech, hands-on science and culture exhibit. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 10-Feb. 16 at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd. Entry included with general admission. $8-$13; children under 3 free. 303-370-6000 or dmns.org.