It looks exactly like what it is - a creature long dead - but the animal lying on its side at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra is facing a new kind of threat.
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Conservators, wearing masks, gloves and laboratory coats for protection against the chemicals they are using, have just pulled the crudely skinned thylacine carcass from a display case filled with liquid the colour of strong tea.
Among them is Simon Moore, a British freelance conservator who is an expert in the conservation of natural science specimens.
The museum has asked him to assess the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, which has become so fragile it has been removed from public display. Even vibrations created by people walking by the plate-glass container were damaging it.
''We've been concerned about the condition of the thylacine, which is very important for us and for the nation,'' deputy manager of conservation Nicki Smith said. ''We want to make sure we're doing the best that we can for it.''
Ms Smith said the Tasmanian tiger was first removed from display in 2002, when the preserving solution became so cloudy it was difficult to see the animal. The solution was changed and the specimen returned to public display in 2005, but the liquid again turned cloudy and the thylacine was removed.
Tests suggested protein from muscle, or calcium carbonate from teeth and bones, were leaching into the solution, thus weakening the specimen's structural strength.
Mr Moore, whose career includes 23 years at the Natural History Museum in London, said while the overall condition of the specimen appeared stable, he had found some white and waxy tissue near the pelvis.
''I can't say yet what it was, but it could be slightly fatty,'' he said. ''But it shouldn't be like that because formalin and preservatives stabilise fats.''
The sound generated by tapping the thylacine's bones and teeth suggested they were solid and had not decomposed, despite the carcass having being preserved some time between 1928 and 1930.
Liquid samples from the internal cavity signalled all was well with the internal organs. ''That's very encouraging, because sometimes a specimen can look fine from the outside but it can be deteriorating from the inside,'' Mr Moore said.
The thylacine is one of more than 2400 items in the museum's so-called wet collection that Mr Moore reviewed on Monday.
Among them is Phar Lap's heart, weighing 6.35 kilograms. ''At the museum in London [there] was an elephant heart, and it was almost as big as that.''
