After being missing for more than 85 years, the remains of the last known thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger, have been discovered in a dusty cupboard in a Tasmanian museum.
In the new series The Peripheral, based on William Gibson’s novel of the same name, future millionaire Lev Zubov has some strange pets. With a wolf’s head, tiger stripes and a pouch like a kangaroo’s, the thylacine is certainly a strange and fascinating creature. Unfortunately, it is extinct.
This carnivorous species was about the size and appearance of a dog, but is actually a marsupial closer to kangaroos and koalas. The Last Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) died at Beaumaris Zoo, in Hobart, capital of the island state of Tasmania, Australia, on September 7, 1936, marking the date of the extinction of the species. There are black and white pictures of a thylacine in the zoo which is believed to be the last of its kind. However, new research suggests that the animal in these images was, in fact, the penultimate thylacine.
It turns out that the last thylacine was an old female captured by hunter Elias Churchill in the valley of Florence and sold to the zoo in May 1936. She died a few months after arriving at the zoo and her corpse was sent to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery ( TMAG), but conservatives did not correctly label him because he had been illegally captured.
Photo: Skull of the last thylacine to die at Hobart Zoo on September 7, 1936. Image credit: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
For years, many museum curators and researchers searched for his remains without success. No thylacine material dating back to 1936 had been recorded in the zoological collection, so it was presumed that his body had been discarded.
Later, TMAG’s curators of vertebrate zoology studied an unpublished report by a museum taxidermist dated 1936-37 that mentioned a thylacine. This led to a review of the specimens they had in the TMAG warehouse, finally revealing that they had the last extant thylacine from 1936 in their collection.
The thylacine’s body was skinned and the disarticulated skeleton was placed in a series of five boxes. The skin was carefully tanned by the museum’s taxidermist, allowing it to be easily transported and used as a demonstration specimen for school classes for years to come.
Man and excessive hunting were mainly responsible for the disappearance of the species. Bounties were offered by farmers in the 1840s for the animals, which were the target of a government-sponsored extermination campaign in the 1880s. Some die-hard fans of the animal believe the species is still alive and living hidden in the wild. nature, but scientists largely refute these claims.
With the help of the last thylacine remains, researchers hope to be able to continue to keep the legacy of this rare and wonderful species alive.