Thylacine

One of Tazmanian Tiger's thylacines

Thylacines are carnivorous marsupials native to Australia, and more commonly known as tasmanian tigers or tasmanian wolves. They are generally believed to have been driven extinct in the 20th century.

History

Tazmanian Tiger is named after this animal and somehow acquired two such beasts, named Benjamin and Natasha, which he used to help him commit a crime in Sydney. ("Strangers")

Characteristics

The thylacine species, scientifically named Thylacinus cynocephalus, was the largest carnivorous marsupial species existing in historical times. In general shape and appearance, and especially in the shape of the face and skull, thylacines closely resembled placental wolves, even though they were marsupials and thus unrelated to the dog family. They had light brown to grey fur with a distinctive series of black stripes on the rump, hind legs, and tail, leading to the common name of Tasmanian tiger. Unlike wolves and tigers, thylacines had fairly inflexible tails. Like all marsupials, the females carried their young cubs in a pouch.

Thylacines were nocturnal carnivores, roughly the same length from nose to tail-tip as a wolf, though with a proportionately longer tail and shorter legs, and weighing about half as much as a wolf. In close quarters, they were stronger than dogs of similar size, and had the unusual ability to bite through bone, even rib-cages and skulls. Thylacines could also open their jaws extremely wide, and this gape may have served as a threat display. The sound made by thylacines is reported to have been a coughing sort of bark.

Despite their overall resemblance to wolves, most evidence indicates that thylacines did not behave in a manner similar to canids. They had shorter legs than wolves, and the proportions of their limbs indicate that they could not have effectively hunted prey by means of a long chase. They were known to be slower runners than dogs, though they had great agility when leaping, and this may indicate that they hunted by ambush. There is no evidence that they hunted in packs.

Real World Background

Two thylacines in the Washington D.C. Zoo. Picture taken between 1902 and 1905.

Thylacines were originally the top predator in Australia and New Guinea, but scientists are not sure when the species disappeared from these areas. By the time European explorers arrived on the continent, thylacines were restricted to the island of Tasmania.

Europeans quickly came to consider the "tigers" a threat to their livestock. Settlers waged a determined campaign of extermination against the thylacines, including bounties offered, similar to the overhunting which has extirpated the placental wolf from most of Europe and North America. The combination of bounty hunting, deforestation, and possibly competition and diseases from introduced dogs, caused the rapid disappearance of the species. The last known individual, named Benjamin, died in the Hobart Zoo in 1936, the same year that the Australian government finally gave the thylacine legal protection.

Although thylacines are officially considered extinct by the international scientific community and the Australian government, sightings of the animals have never ceased, and the possibility remains that the species still exists. However, if thylacines are still extant, continuing deforestation and mining in Tasmania may soon finish it off.

See also

• The Thylacine Museum
• Thylacine at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia