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The Thylacine
This is a Thylacine
The Thylacine, ( Thylacinus cynocephalus ), had no shortage of nicknames. It has been called the Tasmanian Pouched Wolf, Tasmanian Tiger, Kangaroo Wolf, Zebra Wolf, and, occasionally, the Hyena Opossum. Of course, it wasn't a wolf, or, for that matter, a tiger, kangaroo, zebra, OR a hyena. I guess it WAS kind of an opossum though…
It was a marsupial, with a backward-opening pouch for it's young like a 'possum, but it looked like a canid. Before the Aborigines arrived in Australia, the Thylacine was the top of the food chain on the mainland as well as on the island of Tasmania. With the aborigines arrival came their pet dogs, ( dingoes ), and after a couple hundred years, the Thylacines were gone from Australia proper.
They did hang on in dingo-free Tasmania for quite a while though. "The Thylacine fed originally on kangaroos, wallabies, and ground birds.It always hunted singly at dusk, night or dawn, following its prey by scent at a leisurely trot as it was incapable of any great speed. If pressed, it broke into a shambling canter, and could rise on its hind legs and hop if it encountered difficult obstacles. A Thylacine never chased quarry flat out, but doggedly pursued it until it showed signs of exhaustion and then rushed in.
Although the Pouched Wolf would not have matched the true wolf as a hunter, it was armed with jaws of great strength whose gape was far greater even than that of the largest grey wolf. The Thylacine invariably killed its prey by crushing the skull.
When men tried to hunt the Tasmanian Wolf with dogs, it was often at cost, for it had no fear of even the biggest kangaroo hounds. One Ronald Gunn reported that even a pack of dogs would refuse to move in on an old male Thylacine once they got it at bay. According to one hunter, H.S. Mackay: ‘ A bull terrier once set upon a wolf and bailed it up in a niche in some rocks. There the wolf stood with its back to the wall, turning its head from side to side, checking the terrier as it tried to butt in from alternate and opposite directions. Finally the dog came in close and the wolf gave one sharp, fox-like bite, tearing a piece of the dogs skull clean off, and it fell with the brain protruding, dead.
In 1888 the Tasmanian government offered a bounty for the Thylacine, although, since 1840, the Van Diemans Land Company had set their own bounty on the animals. Between 1888-1914 at least 2,268 Thylacines are known to have been killed and turned in. In 1910 an epidemic rather like distemper, and possibly brought by domestic dogs, may have reduced the already dangerously low population.
In 1936, the government totally reversed its stance and granted the Thylacine complete protection, imposing severe fines on anyone killing one. The gesture was almost absurd. The last authenticated killing of a wild Thylacine was in Mawbanna in 1930: the last one captured was in 1933. This was kept in Hobart Zoo but died the same year. There have been later claims of Thylacine sightings and even killings. One 'kill' produced only hair and blood samples of debatable origin; and another, a brindled greyhound. Since 1933 there has been no acceptable evidence of the animals existence anywhere in Tasmania.
However, in 1985, astonishing new evidence came to the public notice. But it did not come from Tasmania. It came from Western Australia where the Thylacine was thought to have been extinct for over a thousand years. A tracker of Aboriginal descent named Kevin Cameron produced photographs of what appears to be a living Thylacine. There remains considerable controversy over Camerons evidence. However, if the photographs are authentic and a viable Thylacine population is found to be living in Western Australia, it may prove to be one of the most important animal discoveries of the century."
I know what all of you guys are wondering….You are wondering if this animal explains why all of the Australian werewolves in the movie "The Howling IV" have stripes on their lower back. Well…in a word…I think so. But then they wouldn't really be werewolves …they would be were-supials…I think.
You must also be dying to know if this animal is related to the Tasmanian Devil…
Yep…the Tasmanian Devil is a little black mongoose-lookin' thing with a white spot on its chest that bears absolutely no resemblance to the popular Warner Brothers cartoon character.
That about wraps it up for this month kids. More fun than a "Beanie Baby" I would say.
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