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Genetically incompatible to that degree?

Definitely. The Thylacinadae are a stand alone group, used to be thought to be closely related to the Dasyurids, devils, quolls etc, but turns out to be a sister group to them. Closest living relative is actually the numbat.

All these photos from the mainland are foxes or dogs, they look nothing remotely like tigers, which became extinct there for about 3kya. You don't tend to see them from Tasmania (extinct there in the early 1930s) as there are no foxes there.
 
Interesting. I mean it does look plausible as a Tasmanian Tiger as positioned in the image. Though with its head facing us like that it's impossible to say whether it has the facial profile we'd be looking for.

One thought though. Is it implausible at this point that Thylacines may have cross-bred with another marsupial - either at some point in the distant past (before being declared extinct) or through a small number of survivors in generations after that point.

What I mean is, when we see modern sightings like this, is what we are seeing truly a 'Tasmanian Tiger' or another cross-bred creature, which has inherited markings or body shape from having a thylacine as an ancestor?

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Genetically incompatible to that degree?

We have a gentleman here who's surname is Waters who believes that mainland Thylacines are extant. and have altered genetically in 4,000 years in response to their environment.

I doubt it. To paraphrase Monty Python - The mainland Thylacine is not pining for the Fjords...it is bereft of life, it rests in peace, It's metabolic processes are now history! It's kicked the bucket, It's shuffled off its mortal coil...it is deceased.
 
We have a gentleman here who's surname is Waters who believes that mainland Thylacines are extant. and have altered genetically in 4,000 years in response to their environment.

I doubt it. To paraphrase Monty Python - The mainland Thylacine is not pining for the Fjords...it is bereft of life, it rests in peace, It's metabolic processes are now history! It's kicked the bucket, It's shuffled off its mortal coil...it is deceased.

I could tell some stories about that one, but I won't.
 
We have a gentleman here who's surname is Waters who believes that mainland Thylacines are extant. and have altered genetically in 4,000 years in response to their environment.

I doubt it. To paraphrase Monty Python - The mainland Thylacine is not pining for the Fjords...it is bereft of life, it rests in peace, It's metabolic processes are now history! It's kicked the bucket, It's shuffled off its mortal coil...it is deceased.


I don't disagree that here and now, 2019, they are almost certainly long since gone. My question was purely if there were other creatures out there which had perhaps bred with Thylacines in past generations, resulting in a small number of crossbreeds. Bearing some of the markings or shape of the extinct Tasmanian Tiger in a current generation.

If that is truly implausible then probably not.
 
Southern Tasmania is currently suffering bush fires, one of the strutures destroyed is what's become known as Churchill's Hut. It isn't Churchill's hut, that was a different structure elsewhere, but it has become associated with the capture of the last thylacine in 1933. Of course, this too is just a story which seems to date to the late 50s to mid 60s, and there's absolutely no evidence Elias Churchill captured the last tiger, and contracictory primary evidence to whoever it was capturing him in 1933.
 

Not that sighting. First let me say that I can't find the original quote, but I'm not sure where the idea of a Parks and Wildlife employee retracting his story flanked by superiors comers from, it doesn't appear to be Tasmania. There is a rumour of a sighting by a Parks and Wildlife guy, but very vague and no further information, there was a sighting by a part time P&W employee called Max Beesley which was exposed as a hoax orchestrated by the Landlord of a nearby pub, then there's the Naarding sighting at Togari. That one was definitely not dismissed, and led to a search and lengthy confidential report and management plan which I've read. It definitely accepted the veracity of Naarding's sighting. The report remains confidential though can be accessed under some circumstances, it contains nothing remarkable just the details of the methodical but fruitless search, and suggestions of how a captured thylacine could be temporarily contained etc. The only thing kept from the public was the sighting itself, and then only while the search was conducted.

Had any such retraction taken place, especially under those circumstances (unless it was the Beesley hoax) it would have fired up the field for several years, it hasn't. The history of the Tasmanian State Government's reaction to the extinction of the thylacine has been pretty transparent. Not what people want to hear perhaps.

I don't think Hans Naarding saw a thylacine that night, but then again I've never thought he was lying either. It is very difficult to explain away, but it's impossible to quantify.

All that said, in a few weeks I'll be in the State, and when I'm in the sticks I'll have a camera in my hand the whole time. Why? I don't know, because no part of me believes it might survive. I just will.
 
Not that sighting. First let me say that I can't find the original quote, but I'm not sure where the idea of a Parks and Wildlife employee retracting his story flanked by superiors comers from, it doesn't appear to be Tasmania.

Well, I do remember that being on TV in the 1990s - just before the internet came along really. So it might not be easy to find, but i do remember seeing that on TV.

(Unless, it's the Mandela Effect? :dunno:)
 
Tasmanian tiger declared extinct 80 years ago ‘spotted’ eight times

Newly released documents show sightings of large carnivore with almost Loch Ness Monster status Down Under

Eight reported sightings of a creature believed to be extinct are forcing experts to wonder whether it could still be alive.

The Tasmanian tiger, a large striped marsupial carnivore with almost Loch Ness Monster status Down Under, was thought to have died out in 1936, when the last one known died in captivity.

But newly released Australian government documents show sightings have been reported as recently as two months ago.

The species, officially called a thylacine, resembled a cross between a large cat, a fox and a wolf. It had yellowish brown fur, powerful jaws and a pouch for its young like a kangaroo.

Among eight sightings in the past three years was one from a couple from Western Australia visiting the island of Tasmania in February, who said they saw one of the creatures crossing the road.
(C) The Independent '19
 
I have many years of experience with media types. Journalists are the worst people i have ever met, serial liars with no backbone they are not interested in truth just the story they want to push. One woman who worked in Tasmania was the worst i ever met. Despite my insistence that i had never search for bigfoot, she persisted in calling me a bigfoot hunter. Another guy, whom i was thankfully not involved with asked my friends if he could come along to cover a thylacine expedition. He begged them not to camp in the forest or go too far in because he couldn't cope and was worried about his camera. My friends took a 200 mile round trip to collect him and they stayed in a lodge rather than in the forest as he had requested. When he wrote up the story he made it out that they not on a real expedition as they did not go deep into the forest or camp out! Any chance these vermin will get they will screw you over.

And her we have an article written with an overweening arrogance and pomposity by someone who has never been in deep wilderness. He pompously dismissed eyewitness sightings but his alternatives stretch credibility to breaking point. Extreme scepticism seems to have gather a stupid mystique these days so much so that we may never solve a single fortean riddle if we carry on down that road.


https://www.theaustralian.com.au/co...QuvI9mHvCz5BKJ3O-MDAQ3UO8nFpW6JDH-RWRQHPlTCV4
 
I have many years of experience with media types. Journalists are the worst people i have ever met, serial liars with no backbone they are not interested in truth just the story they want to push. One woman who worked in Tasmania was the worst i ever met. Despite my insistence that i had never search for bigfoot, she persisted in calling me a bigfoot hunter. Another guy, whom i was thankfully not involved with asked my friends if he could come along to cover a thylacine expedition. He begged them not to camp in the forest or go too far in because he couldn't cope and was worried about his camera. My friends took a 200 mile round trip to collect him and they stayed in a lodge rather than in the forest as he had requested. When he wrote up the story he made it out that they not on a real expedition as they did not go deep into the forest or camp out! Any chance these vermin will get they will screw you over.

And her we have an article written with an overweening arrogance and pomposity by someone who has never been in deep wilderness. He pompously dismissed eyewitness sightings but his alternatives stretch credibility to breaking point. Extreme scepticism seems to have gather a stupid mystique these days so much so that we may never solve a single fortean riddle if we carry on down that road.


https://www.theaustralian.com.au/co...QuvI9mHvCz5BKJ3O-MDAQ3UO8nFpW6JDH-RWRQHPlTCV4
That article is paywalled.
 
That's odd, so it is. I read the whole thing earlier today. Anyhow the journo is an arrogant bastard, talking down his nose to witnesses and pting the word sightings in inverted commas. He wouldn't last half an hour in the bush.
 
They should say last known moving images of the thylacine, though there's a very short undated sequence which I think might well be later than this early 1935 film. Last known image is the Sheppard photo. But does 'vision' mean film now? I don't know but I don't like the word in this context.
 
All I'm doing is (reporting) adding to the "data base" of sightings of the TT.
 
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