Take a peek inside the secret location where the ROM stores Canada's largest fish collection

It's described by staff as the Royal Ontario Museum's "basement," but the space is far from the ROM's main location at Bloor Street West and Avenue Road.

"When you go to visit the ROM, you really only see the tip of the iceberg," said Nathan Lujan, recently named the museum's associate curator of fishes.

The ROM asked CBC Toronto not to disclose the facility's location, which is outside the city and currently holds more than 1.5 million fish specimens from around the world.

"There's this whole back of the house, specimens that have been collected for over a century and provide an important story about the history of earth and the conservation of our planet," Lujan said.

He says part of the reason why the space is offsite is because the amount of alcohol used to preserve the specimens is a fire hazard, so it requires intense security.

The collection consists of about 110,000 jars containing approximately 7,600 species.

Highlights include a lake trout weighing a world record 105 pounds, electric eels, fresh water stingrays and piranhas from the Amazon River — which is where Lujan does the bulk of his research. 

It's estimated there are still thousands of  "undescribed species" of fish and Lujan says his work is focused on discovering and describing those species and adding them to a registry.

WATCH| Take a peek at where the ROM stores Canada's largest fish collection:

His two decades of research and experience as a scientist and catfish expert is what led him to the new role at the ROM. 

"This is like a lending library where each jar is like a book, and contains information about the evolutionary history of that species and ecology of that species," he said.

Researchers from across the globe are able to request specimens and they are packaged and shipped to where they're needed.

Lujan says the collection serves as an archive of ecosystems, and includes species that are now extinct.

"In the modern era where the environment is changing rapidly, climate is changing rapidly, these are an incredibly important resource for understanding how the world existed," he said.