Thylacine

Print Extinct Australian thylacine hunted like a big cat The extinct Australian carnivore known as a thylacine was an ambush predator that could not outrun its prey over long distances, a new analysis shows. ❋ Unknown (2011)

This week's Animal Oddity is about a bizarre-looking species called a thylacine that was hunted to extinction based on what now seems to be a false assumption about its behavior. ❋ David Mizejewski (2011)

I first ran across the thylacine aka “Tasmanian tiger” or “Tasmanian wolf” when I was preparing to teach a summer course on vertebrate zoology for a local Catholic college during grad school. ❋ Unknown (2010)

I think about the folks of the International Society of Cryptozoology, an innocent group of impassioned hobbyists who like to travel and dream and make elaborately careful collections of anecdotal evidence regarding improbable beasts, and among whom the thylacine is an icon. ❋ David Quammen (2004)

Canis dingo is a placental mammalian carnivore of doglike shape and size, whereas the thylacine was a marsupial mammalian carnivore of doglike shape and size, and maybe they were too similar for comfort. ❋ David Quammen (2004)

By studying the bones of the thylacine, scientists from Brown University in the US were able to establish that the thylacine was a solitary, ambush-style predator - much like a cat. ❋ Unknown (2011)

The Tasmanian tiger, also known as the thylacine, was a carnivorous marsupial that looked like a cross between a hyena and a tiger, complete with a smattering of stripes across its back. ❋ Unknown (2011)

Researchers now believe the Tasmanian tiger, also called the thylacine, went extinct in ❋ Unknown (2009)

Dog-like marsupial, also called the thylacine, went extinct in 1936 ❋ Unknown (2009)

As a result, it wasn't long until the thylacine was completely exterminated in the wild. ❋ David Mizejewski (2011)

Climate change, the introduction of dingos by humans from Southeast Asia about 4,000 years ago, and other human changes to the landscape are thought to have collectively spelled the doom of the thylacine over the main Australian continent, but they were still clinging to existence on the dingo-less island of Tasmania at the time of European colonization. ❋ David Mizejewski (2011)

Unfortunately, this research wasn't available to the settlers, and a bounty was put on the head of the thylacine in Tasmania, as was common practice all over the world for any large predator that threatened people or livestock, regardless of whether that threat was real or perceived. ❋ David Mizejewski (2011)

Recent research into the structure and physics of the thylacine body has revealed that despite having a strong bite force, the structure of thylacine skulls, jaws and forelimbs most likely meant that they were solitary ambush hunters that could only subdue and kill animals much smaller than a sheep. ❋ David Mizejewski (2011)

-Hey, [ma], looks, it's a Thylacine ! -No, Billy, that's just a [kangaroo] with but [stripes]. ❋ DingoToe (2011)