Hobart, Australia - The remains of the last known Tasmanian tiger were missing for 85 years. Ironically enough, researchers found the animal remains exactly where they belong: in the museum's collection!

This extinct animal's remains were missing for 85 years. But they weren't really gone, they'd just been misplaced – or rather stashed away.

The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) acquired the remains of the last known Tasmanian tiger back in the 1930s, but as NPR reported, the acquisition of the specimen had been a bit shady.

The carnivorous marsupial's remains were from an old female animal that an Australian trapper had snared and sold to a zoo in May 1936. It died in captivity a few months later, and its body was given to the museum.

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But the sale was not recorded "because, at the time, ground-based snaring was illegal and [the trapper] could have been fined," researcher Robert Paddle, said in a statement. The Tasmanian tiger's remains never made it into the official museum taxidermy records, so experts lost track of it. The skin and skull got stashed away in a cupboard for safekeeping.

"For years, many museum curators and researchers searched for its remains without success, as no thylacine material dating from 1936 had been recorded," Paddle said. "It was assumed its body had been discarded."

The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery's Honorary Curator of Vertebrate Zoology Dr. Kathryn Medlock said researchers realized they'd solved the mystery of the long-lost Tasmanian tiger remains when they found an unpublished museum taxidermist's report from 1936-37.

The report that listed a thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, as one of their projects. This led to a review of TMAG's thylacine collection and eventually, the discovery.

"It is bittersweet that the mystery surrounding the remains of the last thylacine has been solved, and that it has been discovered to be part of TMAG’s collection, TMAG Director Mary Mulcahy said.

The last Tasmanian tiger’s flat skin and skeleton are now on display in the museum’s thylacine gallery, right next to the other extinct animals like the passenger pigeon and Carolina parakeet.