Lonesome George, the iconic giant tortoise of the Galápagos who died last June at over a hundred years of age, is getting stuffed, according to National Geographic.

Taxidermists at New York City's American Museum of Natural History recently received the frozen body of the deceased animal, and they are now doing the painstaking work-measuring, molding, and casting-to ready him for his museum debut this winter. The final George will include his actual skin and shell fit over a custom-made foam structure that mimics his anatomy.

"Doing taxidermy on a tortoise is much like working on an elephant," said George Dante, the lead taxidermist on the project, told National Geo. "There's no fur, so we have to work to preserve the skin, maintaining its natural color and texture as much as possible, sculpting the wrinkles so they are anatomically accurate. There's very little room for error."

In the final product, which will take six to seven months to complete, only the eyes will be "unnatural."

Beginning this winter, the new old George will be on display in New York for an as-yet-undecided amount time before being shipped back to Ecuador's Galápagos Islands.

First found in 1971 all by himself on Pinta Island in the Galápagos, George was believed to be the last member of his species left alive. Overharvesting by people had taken out his kin, while introduced goats had demolished his habitat. With nothing left for him on Pinta, George was moved to the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island-operated by the Charles Darwin Foundation-to live out his long life.

For a time he had company: two females of a closely related species from Isabella Island. But the matchmaking failed to produce any hybrid babies, to everyone's disappointment.

The animals' eating habits and movements help shape the environment by opening up the land and spreading seeds. In an interview with Scientific American, Cayot called the tortoises "the natural habitat engineers of Galápagos," vital to bringing the Galápagos wilderness back to life.

In the meantime George will be seen again in New York, a mounted specimen with neck long and head held high, his role as a conservation and evolutionary icon forever preserved.