Goggling out of its jar with dead, bulbous eyes, stained a ghastly yellow by its embalming alcohol, is a mutated octopus. Just behind it is another octopus, also in a jar. To its left is a bottled shoal of sea bass.
Above and below (and all around) are 850,000 other jars. They contain a total of 22 million zoological specimens, ranging from plankton to giant squid.
No, we're not in the world's largest Chinese medicine shop. We are in the London Natural History Museum's newly opened Darwin Center, and what an eye-opener it is.