When the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History reopens in its new home about a year from now, visitors to the evolution gallery will come face to face with a life-size, hyperrealistic sculptural reconstruction of an extinct human relative that roamed southern Africa 2 million years ago.

The Australopithecus sediba sculpture is expected to be a real crowd pleaser, but for now it remains in its shipping crate, awaiting installation later this year. The museum commissioned the sculpture—which is believed to be the only full-body, fleshed reconstruction of A. sediba anywhere—from the renowned Daynès Studio in Paris and took delivery last month.