Mammals
Thylacine
Thylacinus cynocephalus · also called Tasmanian tiger, Tasmanian wolf, marsupial wolf
The thylacine was Australia’s largest carnivorous marsupial in modern times — a striped, stiff-tailed, dog-shaped hunter that the last century wiped out. The final known individual died in a Hobart zoo in 1936, and the animal has haunted Australian imagination ever since.
Overview
By the time Europeans arrived, thylacines survived only on the island of Tasmania, in forest, woodland, wetland, and open grassland, having vanished from the Australian mainland and New Guinea thousands of years earlier. They were shy, largely nocturnal, and solitary or in small family groups, hunting by scent and endurance rather than a fast chase, and denning in caves, hollow logs, and dense scrub.
A marsupial that looked like a wolf
The thylacine is one of the most cited cases of convergent evolution: from a marsupial ancestor, entirely separate from the lineage of dogs and cats, it evolved a body plan almost indistinguishable at a glance from a wolf’s. Its distinguishing features were the 15 to 20 dark stripes across the lower back and tail (giving “Tasmanian tiger”), a stiff, thick-based tail carried out straight like a kangaroo’s, an enormous jaw gape of around 80 degrees, and a rear-opening pouch — present in both sexes, though functional only in the female.
Diet and the sheep myth
Thylacines ate wallabies, kangaroos, possums, bandicoots, and birds. They were blamed for large-scale sheep killing after Tasmania was settled, and this belief drove their destruction — but studies of their weak jaw muscles and small size suggest they could not have taken many sheep, and most losses were probably due to feral dogs and human theft. The scapegoating stuck anyway.
Extinction
A government bounty operated from 1888 to 1909 and paid for the killing of more than 2,000 thylacines; company and private bounties killed more. Combined with habitat loss, competition and disease from introduced dogs, and a possible epidemic, the population collapsed. The last wild thylacine was probably shot around 1930. The species was given legal protection on 10 July 1936, and the last known captive animal died at Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart on 7 September 1936 — 59 days later. It was officially declared extinct in 1986.
Afterlife
The thylacine has never left public consciousness. There have been thousands of unconfirmed sightings, organised searches, camera-trap surveys, and environmental-DNA studies, none of which have found a living animal, and the scientific consensus is that the species is gone. Its complete genome has since been recovered from museum specimens, and a de-extinction project is now attempting to recreate a thylacine by editing the genome of its closest living relative — a small marsupial called the fat-tailed dunnart — an effort that is scientifically ambitious and ethically contested.
Thylacine: common questions
What was the thylacine, and was it really a "tiger"?
It was a marsupial — a pouched mammal, more closely related to kangaroos and the Tasmanian devil than to any placental carnivore — that had evolved a strikingly dog- or wolf-like body. It was neither a tiger nor a wolf; the names come from its size, its predatory habits, and the 15 to 20 dark stripes across its rump and tail. It is one of the classic examples of convergent evolution, having arrived at nearly the same shape as a canid from a completely separate branch of the mammal tree.
How and why did the thylacine go extinct?
On the Australian mainland it disappeared thousands of years ago, probably out-competed by the dingo and affected by a drying climate and human hunting. In Tasmania it survived until European settlement, when it was blamed — largely unfairly — for killing sheep. A government bounty from 1888 paid for over 2,000 thylacine carcasses, and private and company bounties, habitat loss, disease, and competition with dogs did the rest. By the 1920s it was rare; the last wild animal was probably shot in 1930, and the last captive one died in 1936. Protection was granted just 59 days before that death.
Do thylacines still exist? What about all the sightings?
There is no verified evidence that any survive. Hundreds of people have reported seeing thylacines in Tasmania and mainland Australia since 1936, and searches — including camera-trap surveys and, more recently, environmental DNA sampling — have been carried out, but nothing has confirmed a living animal. Most researchers consider the species extinct, and the last credible chance of a relict population is generally put in the mid-20th century. The sightings likely reflect misidentified foxes, dogs, and other animals, and the strong wish for the animal not to be gone.
Could the thylacine be brought back?
A well-funded "de-extinction" project is attempting it, aiming to edit the genome of the thylacine's closest living relative, a small carnivorous marsupial called the fat-tailed dunnart, toward that of the thylacine using DNA recovered from museum specimens. Whether a functional thylacine — as opposed to a genetically modified dunnart — can result, and whether it would be ethical or useful to release one, is heavily debated. The thylacine's full genome has been sequenced from preserved specimens, which makes it one of the leading candidates for the technique.