Lauren Davis
The year of the (Tasmanian) tiger
With 2022 being the Year of the Tiger according to the Chinese zodiac, it is appropriate that research efforts over the past 12 months have shone a light on the Australian thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger. In some cases this was a literal light, with ABC journalists discovering that thylacine fur glows under black (UV) light. Yet this focus on the thylacine is rather remarkable given that the apex predator has been extinct for close to a century — although some researchers are doing their utmost to change that.
The thylacine in the cupboard
said Robert Paddle, a comparative psychologist
The thylacine, a unique marsupial carnivore, was
from the Australian Catholic University.
once widespread in Australia but was confined to
When the female died — with no one realising
Tasmania by the time Europeans arrived in the 18th
it was the last known thylacine in captivity — its
century. It was soon hunted to extinction by colonists,
body was transferred to the Tasmanian Museum
with the last known animal, made famous through
and Art Gallery (TMAG). But with no record of
photographs and film footage, dying at Hobart’s
thylacine material from 1936 ever filed or found
Beaumaris Zoo in 1936. But it was recently found that
in the museum’s zoological collection, it was
this particular thylacine was in fact outlived by an older
assumed that the body had been discarded. It was
female, captured by trapper Elias Churchill and sold to
only the detection of an unpublished museum
the zoo in May 1936.
taxidermist’s report dated 1936/37, mentioning
“The sale was not recorded or publicised by
a thylacine among the list of specimens worked
the zoo because, at the time, ground-based snaring
on during the year, which led to a review of all
was illegal and Churchill could have been fined,”
the thylacine skins and skeletons in the TMAG
6 | LAB+LIFE SCIENTIST - Dec 2022/Jan 2023
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