The Waitaki Museum and Archive will host Te Papa’s touring exhibit "Colossal Squid Ngu Tipua" over the Christmas and New Year period.
The enormous invertebrate is so rarely seen that only eight adult colossal squid have ever been scientifically reported.
Te Papa is the only place in the world to have one on display.
Touring the complete specimen is impossible but some of the important parts of the squid are coming to town.
It will be the first time in 10 years the museum has hosted a touring exhibition.
Arts, culture and libraries manager Chloe Searle said having a touring exhibit come to town had been long overdue.
"It is a really cool opportunity to have something like this come from our national museum.
"It’s one of the things I really hoped, when we worked on redeveloping the museum, that we’d be able to take these opportunities when they come up."
The exhibit will feature pieces of a dissected squid as well as some interactive elements alongside audio and visual displays, she said.
The opportunity to host it was exciting as it was very different from what the Waitaki Museum typically did.
"Our collection here at the museum shapes a lot of the exhibitions that we put on.
That means a lot of them are quite social history heavy, because that’s where most of our museum collection sits.
"We have less of a collection in the scientific space.
"So it’s a really good opportunity to have a really science-based exhibition with the expertise that the Te Papa team have, which is beyond our resources as a small museum."
The exhibit will be set up in the temporary exhibition space at the museum from next Thursday until February 16.
