In January 2010, Kris Helgen was deep in the bowels of the Queensland Museum in Brisbane, Australia. After selecting flattened koala pelts nestled in metal storage cabinets, he carefully cut away tiny pieces of skin, making a note of where and when each animal had originally been collected.

He had travelled down under to gather samples from historic koala specimens for two animal biologists who wanted to extract ancient koala DNA to study the genetic history of this iconic marsupial.

Via The Scientist.