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The Thylacine ('Tasmanian Tiger' Or 'Wolf')

Lord Lucan said:
I was just checking my YouTube homepage to see what was new in the channels that I subscribe to when the video below appeared as one recommended to watch.
It's only 16 seconds long and claims to be footage of a Tasmanian Tiger filmed at London Zoo in 1930. A quick search found no results in this or either tiger related threads.
One disconcerting thing is that there's no information as to the original source of the film.
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This is 100% genuine, and is one of the known films. There's hardly ever any information on the original sources. It takes months of research, if you're lucky, to get that Sometimes years, other times never.

I know this film as being said to be of the last London female and taken by David Seth Smith. I'm not doubting that necessarily but experience taught me never to accept anyone else's attributions or dates without double checking. All we can say without seeing the evidence is that it's a captive thylacine.
 
Just how much did a Tasmanian Tiger/Wolf weigh? It now seems that long held beliefs are now up for debate (if this article is correct):

The Tasmanian tiger was hunted to extinction as a ‘large predator’ – but it was only half as heavy as we though
Until it was hunted to extinction, the thylacine – also known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf – was the world’s largest marsupial predator. However, our new research shows it was in fact only about half as large as previously thought. So perhaps it wasn’t such a big bad wolf after all.

Although the thylacine is widely known as an example of human-caused extinction, there is a lot we still don’t know about this fascinating animal. This even includes on

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https://theconversation.com/the-tas...t-was-only-half-as-heavy-as-we-thought-144599
 
Thylacine research is going through a bit of a Renaissance at the moment, bit like the Dinosaur Renaissance but without the popular appeal. Part of the appeal of this animal has been a lack of hard facts which has allowed people to project their personal fantasies or prejudices onto them. Studies like this are addressing that issue.
 
In the book I am currently reading, cat country, the quest for the British big cat, by Di Francis, there are a couple of reports where the closest resemblance to what the witness seen was a thylacine...make of that what you will.
 
titch said:
In the book I am currently reading, cat country, the quest for the British big cat, by Di Francis, there are a couple of reports where the closest resemblance to what the witness seen was a thylacine...make of that what you will.
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Well I hope they're in the British medium sized cat section then. As to reports of anything like that there's no possibility a thylacine could be involved.

As an aside there's a section there on Tonmawr big cat isn't there? I think that's also where the photo of the stretching tabby appears? Anyway my ex-wife swore that the Tonmawr Terror (or whatever they call it) killed her cat.
 
oldrover said:
As an aside there's a section there on Tonmawr big cat isn't there?
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A section and TWO pictures of a big black cat, well it's supposed to be a big black cat but could be an ordinary moggie to my eyes.
 
New info keeps popping up all the time...

Tasmanian tiger pelt found in New Zealand reveals rich colours of the extinct thylacine

ttiger.jpg


Important findings about the extinct Tasmanian tiger indicate the true beauty of the enigmatic thylacine thanks to a well-preserved pelt.

Key points:
  • The thylacine pelt yields new knowledge about the extinct marsupial including hair coarseness, shape and colour
  • Its "chocolate", "honey" and grey colours are more dramatic than previously realised
  • Tasmanian tigers were well-adapted to the climate, with eight types of hair including hollow hairs to trap heat
A microscopic examination of the recently rediscovered pelt revealed the animal's fur varied in coarseness, shape and colour, and it had at least three layers of body hair.

David Thurrowgood, a Launceston conservator, said the pelt's colours were much more dramatic than in other faded thylacine pelts that existed in museums, which made the pelt one of the best still in existence.
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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08...acine-colourful-pelt-from-nz-reveals/12597682
 
Another new/s story with some interesting theories:

Thylacines Had More In Common With Coyotes Than With Wolves
Thylacines may have lived more like coyotes than like wolves, suggests a recent study, which looked at the extinct marsupial predator’s body size as a clue about its now-abandoned role in Tasmania’s ecosystem.

Of all the animals that have gone extinct in the last century, thylacines may be among the most compelling. They looked like an impossible cross between a wolf and a small tiger, with striped hindquarters, long tails, and pointed ears. But thylacines were marsupials, like koalas, wombats, or possums – mammals who carried their newborn pups in a pouch. Their lineage has been on a different evolutionary path from placental mammals like dogs and cats for the last 160 million years.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/kionas...n-with-coyotes-than-with-wolves/#5eb1a0327bf8
 
Kondoru said:
EIGHT types of hair?

Thats bit complex
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Humans have a variety of head hair forms, plus chin/cheek hair, underarm hair and general body hair in male and female varieties, and pubic hair, all of which grow at different rates. Now these are found across different humans, so not quite as impressive as 8 on one.
I wonder how that compares to similar creatures such as dogs, wolves, foxes, and various cats?
 
From the excellent Rare Historical Photos site...

Thylacine: Rare photos of the last Tasmanian tiger, 1910-1933

The thylacine, most commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger because of its striped lower back or the Tasmanian wolf because of its canid-like characteristics, was one of the largest carnivorous marsupials.

The thylacine was relatively shy and nocturnal, with the general appearance of a medium-to-large-size dog, except for its stiff tail and abdominal pouch similar to a kangaroo’s, and dark transverse stripes that radiated from the top of its back, reminiscent of a tiger. The thylacine was a formidable apex predator, though exactly how large its prey animals were is disputed....
 
titch said:
In the book I am currently reading, cat country, the quest for the British big cat, by Di Francis, there are a couple of reports where the closest resemblance to what the witness seen was a thylacine...make of that what you will.
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Fox with mange.
 
cycleboy2 said:
Early 1980s post-punk band: I've got their first album, but their career was downhill after that...
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I found out yesterday that there is an actual bad called The Thieving Gypsy Bastards after the strip in Viz. Sadly they are not very good.
 
lordmongrove said:
Fox with mange.
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I live in Australia and once had an emaciated fox with mange wander down my street. Granted it was in broad daylight in the open (which was weird enough), but it never occurred to me that it was anything other than a fairly unwell fox.
 
I confess to knowing absolutely nothing on the topic of the various types of DNA and their usages, but I came across this story today:

Environmental DNA Company Develops Tasmanian Tiger Test
In what may lead to a breakthrough in determining whether or not the famed Tasmanian Tiger still exists, an Australian company specializing in environmental DNA research has developed a method for detecting the presence of the famed creature. The burgeoning field of environmental DNA research centers around the cultivation of shed skin cells, hair and other minute biological material found in soil or water and then comparing it against a genetic database to create a catalog of creatures living in a certain area. Conversely, the technique can also be used to look for one specific animal, which is how it wound up capturing the interest of prominent thylacine researcher Michael Moss.
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Source: https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/environmental-dna-company-develops-tasmanian-tiger-test/

The company doing so has it's own web page which elaborates a little more":

Searching for Tasmanian Tiger (...DNA, that is!)
EnviroDNA offers innovative methods of wildlife detection using an approach known as environmental DNA (eDNA). eDNA refers to the traces of DNA that all living creatures leave in the environment through the shedding of skin cells, scales, hair and other bodily secretions. By detecting eDNA, scientists can discover what species may be present in an environment.

Working with a range of industries across Australia, EnviroDNA helps to detect species of interest and aims to improve environmental management outcomes for wildlife and ecosystems. Amongst the usual list of native or invasive species we are approached with, the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine, officially deemed extinct in 1982 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), had not previously been one of them.
/QUOTE]
Source: https://www.envirodna.com/news/searching-for-tasmanian-tiger-dna

Hopefully it's not all a load of bunk and that sometime in the future it'll lead to something conclusive.
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Environmental DNA (eDNA) isn't a type of DNA, but rather the overall set of genetic materials shed or otherwise left from animals within a given environment (locale).

The most obvious Fortean-related eDNA survey was the collection of samples from all around Loch Ness a couple of years ago:

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/599380/environmental-dna-suggests-loch-ness-monster-is-giant-eel

The point here - as at Loch Ness - is to comprehensively survey and sample DNA residues in a given locale, analyze them, and check to see if the sample set includes any genetic material that cannot be attributed to a known or expected species. If, unlike the Loch Ness example, one has a sample of a particular genome to serve as a target the analysis may be directed to identify any 'hits' matching the sample.
 
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New footage showing a juvenile Tasmanian Tiger re-found:


A recently unearthed piece of film from 1930 is believed to be the only-known footage of a Tasmanian Tiger cub and appears to rewrite the story of the final thylacine held in captivity. The seven-second-long glimpse of the creature was reportedly filmed by the late Reverend Harold Doyle, who donated it to Australia's National Film and Sound Archive in 1982. Remarkably, the footage was subsequently forgotten about for nearly forty years until it was recently rediscovered.
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More here: https://www.coasttocoastam.com/arti...ootage-of-juvenile-tasmanian-tiger-unearthed/
 
Aside from it being the only footage of a juvenile so far recovered (we're looking for another but I'm not hopeful), the main value in this footage comes from the date it was taken, 23rd December 1930. Which led to further work which confirmed that its subject the Delphin animal was male, rather than female as was reported in a shoddy little article of the time. This means that there's no evidentially based objection to identifying it, the last definitely contemporaneously recorded thylacine purchased by the Beaumaris Zoo, as the last captive which died on September 7th 1930. In turn this makes a good argument for where the species was last definitely recorded in the wild.

It's important to say though that there's an alternative position, that the last captive was captured some months later fairly near to the Delphin captures of July and August 1930, by a John Kaine very early in 1931. Both positions have been published this month, Kaine in Australian Zoologist, Delphin in the Papers and Proceedings of the Tasmanian Historical Research Association. Ultimately the main point being both present evidence against the supposed 1933 Churchill capture, and both propose the capture took place within a few months in the north west. So hair and fur.
 
From the University of Melbourne:

Tasmanian tiger pups found to be extraordinary similar to wolf pups
Micro-CT scanning and digital reconstructions have been used to compare the skulls of the Tasmanian tiger (thylacine) and wolf across their early development and into adulthood, establishing that not only did the thylacine resemble the wolf as adults, but also as newborns and juveniles.

"Remarkably, the Tasmanian tiger pups were more similar to wolf pups than to other closely related marsupials," Professor Andrew Pask from the University of Melbourne said.
The collaborative study with Flinders University and Museums Victoria complement earlier findings that thylacine and wolf have evolved similar instructions in their genome, which influence cranial stem cells during development.
While scientists have worked out that different animals evolve to look the same because they occupy similar places in the ecosystem, they have yet to explain how animals evolve to become convergent, particularly the forces driving their early development. The study provides significant new insights into how animals develop to look a certain way and then when in development these things happen.
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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/01/210108111059.htm
 
A new study contends that Thylacines only became extinct around 1998:

A fascinating new study which exhaustively examined what is believed to be every known sighting of the Tasmanian Tiger over the last century upends current conventional thinking and indicates that the creature may actually have gone extinct as recently as around 20 years ago. The thought-provoking project reportedly unfolded over the course of three years and saw researchers collect approximately 1,200 cases of thylacine sightings from as far back as 1910 and up to 2020. Using this one-of-a-kind database, the group were able to come to some rather eyebrow-raising conclusions. More here: https://www.coasttocoastam.com/arti...iger-likely-went-extinct-around-20-years-ago/

The paper: Extinction of the Thylacine:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.18.427214v1.full
 
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