Thylacines were once the largest marsupial predators ever to existed in modern times and thrived on Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea for more than 40,000 years. They have short course fur that is dirty yellow-brown in color and have 13-19 stripes running from the back to the base of the tail. Now extinct, the largest living carnivorous predator is the Tasmanian predator and is the thylacine's closest living relative.
They prefered living in dry eucalyptus forests, wetlands, and grasslands throughout mainland Australia. They are mainly nocturnal and known to sunbathe during midday. The thylacines are built to be ambush hunters, hunting kangaroos, wallabies, small mammals, and birds. They probably also hunted the now extinct Tasmanian emu. They were famous for their yawn gape which is the widest of any mammal and is only surpassed by that of a snake. They also have the ability to rear up on its hind legs like the kangaroos for short periods at a time. Around 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, early settlers set foot on the continent and brought dingos with them. Dingos were able to run much longer than the thylacines and can pull down larger prey. They have a better advantage since they are omnivorous and the thylacine were mainly carnivores and outcompeted them. They managed to hanged on in Tasmania in the 1930s where the dingos are absent from. They became notorius for killing sheep when Europeans began to farm. The farming corporation, the Van Diemens Land Company began to take this in their own hands and offered a bounty of 5 shillings for a male carcass and 7 for a female. The Tasmanian government soon followed after in 1888 and payed their residents to slaughter them. Before the slaughter was banned in 1909, 2,184 thylacines died from the financial aid of taxpayer money. The last thylacine to be shot in the wild was a male in 1930. The Tasmanian government officially listed the thylacine as a protected species on July 10. 1936 just 59 days before the last one died. The last captive individual was Benjamin at the Hobart Zoo and died on September 7 after it was locked out of its shelter and passed away from the cold temperature. |
Thylacines were famous for their wide gape
Introduced dingos outcompeted the thylacine from Australia
Only known footage of the thylacine
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