Ten years ago, in 2004, Eric, the museum's popular giant gourami fish, quietly finished his days in the same big tank.
Not long before the end, he had been serenely swimming alone, having munched his way through the last of his smaller rivals.
Flesh-coloured and exotic, Eric hailed originally from Indonesian waters and lived for 14 years- the last 10 of them at the museum, where he had become an increasingly admired star.
Eric's origins had been humble. He gained a home at the museum after a South Dunedin pet shop closed down and he had nowhere else to go.
But his museum career quickly began to rise, and, in his latter years, he was shifted upstairs to a more prominent position, and into the present bigger fish tank.
Since Eric's death, tropical fish have taken his place, but things were never quite the same.
But something suitably big happened at the museum yesterday: several endemic giant kokopu native fish - each 15cm-20cm long - were moved into the tank, where they will greet visitors outside the Nature galleries, replacing the previous exotic fish.
Giant kokopu are the biggest of five species that make up the whitebait catch and are of great interest to sustainable aquaculture and conservation researchers.
Matt Wylie, a zoology PhD student at the University of Otago, bred these particular fish as part of his master's thesis, after receiving a Foundation for Research, Science and Technology Te Tipu Putaiao Fellowship.
The aquarium revamp resulted from a collaboration between Mr Wylie, who donated the fish, the museum's living environments co-ordinator, Alishea Woodhead, the Department of Conservation, which funded the required chiller unit, and the Working Waterways Trust.
Museum director Dr Ian Griffin acknowledged Eric's popularity, but said the latest display sought to highlight the impressive reality of some of New Zealand's own native fish, and not just fish from overseas.
Miss Woodhead said she was keen to raise awareness about these native fish and ''all the things we can do to improve their future''.
New Zealand's native fish were ''bigger, prettier and more interesting than most people think'', she said.
