The vanished predator that once hunted the Australian mainland
In short: It had a fox-like face, a massive 90-degree jaw gape, and dark stripes across its back. The thylacine was the largest carnivorous marsupial of recent times, yet it vanished from the wild just decades after the last known specimen died.
The thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, was a slender predator measuring between 100 and 130 cm in length. While its skull resembled that of a dog, its biology was distinctly marsupial, featuring a thick tail and a jaw capable of an enormous opening. Historically, these animals inhabited the Australian mainland, New Guinea, and Tasmania, preying on birds, kangaroos, and small rodents. The animal's weight typically ranged from 15 to 30 kg, with an average of about 25 kg. Its yellowish brown fur was marked by 13 to 19 dark stripes across the rump and back.
The species' decline was driven by a combination of ecological and human factors. On the mainland, competition with the dingo likely contributed to their disappearance. In Tasmania, European settlers hunted them extensively, viewing them as a threat to introduced domestic sheep. This persecution, alongside habitat destruction and the introduction of new diseases, accelerated their path to extinction. The female species carried between two and four young at a time within a rearward-opening pouch. This loss was part of a broader group of Australidelphia species, which includes nearly 200 members in the Australasian region.
By 1914, the thylacine had become rare, and the last known living individual died in a private zoo in 1936. Although numerous sightings have been reported since the late 1930s, none have been conclusive, and surveys between 1937 and 2008 failed to find a single specimen. However, the story may not be over. Following the 2009 sequencing of its genome, researchers have discussed the possibility of de-extinction. In 2022, a partnership between Colossal Inc. Furthermore, the Thylacine Integrated Genomic Restoration Lab at the University of Melbourne revealed intentions to try bringing the animal back to life. The project aims to reintroduce the species to Tasmania. This scientific effort follows the successful 2009 announcement by an international team of geneticists that they had fully sequenced the thylacine genome.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Australidelphia | marsupial superorder | Britannica
- Also: Australidelphia
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