KARACHI, Feb 10: A six-member team of the Pakistan Museum of Natural History on Friday flew from Islamabad to Karachi and started supervising dissection of the whale shark in the presence of the marine fisheries department and Karachi Fish Harbour Authority officials.

Dr Mohammad Rafiq, the museum director, told Dawn that the team would not only take samples from the rare specimen in order to know the cause of death, but would also reconstruct the entire shark to preserve it in the museum that might cost up to Rs2.5 million.

“The dissection process would complete within a couple of days. The team would take all measurements of the specimen, including those of its internal organs, while tissue samples would be preserved and sent to different laboratories to detect abnormalities,” he said.

The 35-foot-long whale shark was a rare specimen and its measurements would help local and foreign scientific community in research, he said. “The largest specimen of the whale shark was recorded in 1947. At that time we didn’t have the facilities to preserve the specimen but this is not the case right now.”

Dr Rafiq said the lab results might take over one month and the reconstruction process a year.

Explaining the reconstruction process, he said that the skin would be tanned, chemically processed before being put on a specially-designed frame which would then resemble the actual whale shark.

Regarding the condition of the specimen, he said: “The specimen is in excellent condition. There is no deterioration of any sort and the credit for this goes to the KFHA and the marine fisheries department.” Also due in Karachi on Friday, a team of experts from the United Kingdom, however, cancelled its visit on account of security concerns.