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The purpose of a necropsy is typically to determine the cause of death, or extent of disease. This involves a careful process of dissection, observation, interpretation, and documentation. A thorough knowledge of normal anatomy is critical in distinguishing lesions from normal variations.

The necropsy report is a permanent record of the pathologist's findings and plays a critical role in medicolegal proceedings in which every word may be scrutinized in a deposition or court months to years afterward, when all memory of the examination will have faded from the pathologist's mind.

In order to get the most useful information, a necropsy should be performed within 48 hours of death.

If it is impossible to perform the necropsy immediately, keep the carcass in a refrigerator or on ice in a cooler to slow postmortem decomposition. Samples refrigerated for up to 2–3 days may still be used for routine diagnostic purposes.

Measuring and recording the body weight is an important first step in a necropsy for several reasons. The purpose of the external examination is to establish or confirm the identifying features of the animal to document evidence of medical or surgical intervention and to detect and describe any external lesions.

The necropsy will involve a check of animal identification and sex, an external examination of the animal, an in situ examination of all tissues and organs (prior to dissection), and the collecting and weighing of the required tissues.

So what do you call the post-mortem examination of an animal? The appropriate term is “necropsy,” derived from necro (“death”) and the aforementioned opsis. So, all autopsies are necropsies, but not all necropsies are autopsies!

Put simply, a necropsy is the examination of an animal after death. The purpose of a necropsy is typically to determine the cause of death, or extent of disease.