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Thylacines in Cryptozoology

Discussion in 'General Zoo Discussion' started by nanoboy, 17 Sep 2016.

  1. nanoboy

    nanoboy Well-Known Member

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  2. Swampy

    Swampy Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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  3. ThylacineAlive

    ThylacineAlive Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    What were they even trying to film? The video starts with them filming their door or something, and they turn around and pan up to tree branches:p

    ~Thylo:cool:
     
  4. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    I'm shocked at you lot, especially ThylacineAlive, being so quick to jump to ridiculing this awesome footage of a f̶o̶x̶thylacine in Adelaide.

    So what if they were just standing there filming their door for posterity when it happened?

    So what if they a̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶ ̶s̶t̶u̶p̶i̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶c̶a̶m̶e̶r̶a̶'̶s̶ ̶z̶o̶o̶m̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶p̶e̶r̶l̶y̶ ̶couldn't focus in the excitement?

    For shame...
     
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  5. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    I moved the above few posts here from the Nonsense Thread.

    I was just googling to see what this Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia (TAGA) is, to see if it was a spoof group, but it seems to be made of genuine enthusiasts (it seems to be a Facebook group and/or a Youtube Channel). Anyway, one of the first links that came up was the following article which has the Adelaide video, but also a different video from 2008 showing a "thylacine" in Western Victoria which the witness claims was one of several, all of which had stripes. The video very clearly shows a fox (especially right at the start you can plainly see it is a fox), although it has an injured front paw and is hence moving in an unusual way.
    https://www.rt.com/viral/359671-tasmanian-tiger-spotted-camera/

    The video is here on Youtube also:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_M-SskpGi4
     
  6. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    I think the Adelaide 'Thylacine' deserves a place in the nonsense thread too. Have you heard of Thylacines with a white tip on the tail?:rolleyes:

    For the record, a follow-up programme about 'Yetis' by the same programme-makers mentioned the previous 'ancient Polar bear' hypothesis and said, without much explanation, that it was now discounted- before quickly moving on...
     
    Last edited: 18 Sep 2016
  7. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    a lot of cryptozoology belongs in the Nonsense Thread...

    I'm in two minds over whether the Adelaide footage is a genuine blurry fox, or if it is done on a computer. It's so out of focus it's hard to place it one way or the other. But it really is unbelievable how far believers will stretch to say that something like this is proof that a small thylacine is living in the suburbs of a major city.

    The other video (the one of the injured fox) is another case of people just being so blinded by their belief that they can't see what is right in front of their eyes. I mean, there are videos out there which could conceivably be interpreted as being some mysterious or unknown animal (because the footage is too poor to be conclusive about identity), but when the footage is very clearly a fox and the investigator is saying something like "this is definitely a thylacine" you have to wonder about their capabilities.
     
  8. animal_expert01

    animal_expert01 Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    This is not a fox. Look at it's tail, It is long straight and stiff while a foxes tail is bushy and loose.
     
  9. TeaLovingDave

    TeaLovingDave Moderator Staff Member 10+ year member

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    It's a red fox with mange :p and which therefore has lost the fur from its' tail.

    Watch this video of a Red Fox with mange, and pay attention to the tail - guess what? The tail looks long, straight and stiff!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHe5ycjt-UI
     
  10. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    Exactly.:) Although the 'Adelaide Hills' one has enough left on the end of the tail to even show a nice white 'tag'... I've yet to see any piece of grainy footage put up as evidence of Thylacine, which IMO isn't a mangy fox- never anything that remotely or genuinely resembles Thylacine.

    I think this latest piece of nonsense was released to coincide with 'National Thylacine Day' (anniversary of date of the death of the last one in Hobart Zoo). Unfortunately these blurry videos that appear every so often of 'mainland Thylacines' just combine to create more confusion about the very slight possibility of the animal's continued existence in Tasmania.
     
    Last edited: 20 Sep 2016
  11. oldrover

    oldrover Well-Known Member

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    Like this one[​IMG]

    Or this one [​IMG]

    Look at the proportions of the animal in Waters' footage, compare it's metatarsals against its tibia and fibula.

    Seriously, don't be duped. Use your head.
     
    Last edited: 21 Sep 2016
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  12. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    I would like to see these images put up on some of the 'Thylacine' websites- maybe some of those who maintain all those films are not Foxes, would think again after seeing these.
     
  13. oldrover

    oldrover Well-Known Member

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    I have done, so have a few others. It did sway most, but not all. There are always going to be a few who won't be fooled apparently.

    Thing is, the guy is claiming that these films show a mainland sub species. With different legs. Mainland thylacines were different he says. He's a clown.
     
  14. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    Yes, he's away with the fairies. Everyone knows mainland thylacines didn't die out 4000 years ago and have evolved six legs and spotted coats...
     
  15. Swampy

    Swampy Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    No, they just evolved the exact colour and pattern of a mangy red fox, on order to fool their prey... :D
     
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  16. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    I was just listening to a radio interview with Neil Waters who is the founder of TAGA, and he really just won't accept anything other than the Western Victoria video is a thylacine. He even says something about how there's lot of videos of mangy foxes out there but this one is definitely a thylacine because it holds its tail horizontally, and how they slowed down the footage and isolated frames which showed the stripes. This group's belief is pretty staggering, given that there are numerous occasions in the video where you can quite clearly see it is a fox, from its shape, patterning, movement... just everything!
     
    Last edited: 22 Sep 2016
  17. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    ...and just before, while reading some other stuff, I saw that they had an article in yesterday's Australia's Daily Mail about (wait for it) the Rilla Martin photo from 1964!
    Did a Melbourne woman photograph a LIVE Tasmanian Tiger in 1964? Picture shows a mysterious animal that has experts baffled | Daily Mail Online

    The story doesn't explicitly link this "news" with the TAGA (they come later in the story in relation to the videos discussed earlier in this thread, and it does say about the Western Victoria one that "the group's founder, Neil Waters, said there is no doubt that it is a thylacine but said it could well be a sub-species of the creature."). However, curiously, the Rilla Martin photo is branded with a copyright to the Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia (?!).

    It really is like Waters' has just found out about thylacines and is suddenly all like "oh my God, look at this photo - I have to get this publicised so that other people will learn of it!".... and every other person on the planet who knows anything about thylacines in a cryptozoological context mumbles "umm, yes, this is brand new information...." and then rolls their eyes.
     
  18. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    I think maybe they just crave the publicity- why else would one push that claim in the face of all the contrary evidence the video shows.

    The Rilla Martin photo looks like some sort of fake to me, hand-painted(?) with thick stripes on the forequarters to resemble I don't know what. But not a Thylacine anyway.
     
  19. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    the Rilla Martin photo is a really odd one. I have no idea what to make of it - whether it is a real animal or an illusion or an outright hoax. It certainly looks nothing like a thylacine though, where-ever on the body the stripes may be.

    There is a good suggestion that the photo was deliberately retouched by the newspaper before printing to enhance the striping. Rilla actually stated she never noticed stripes when she was taking the photo, which suggests that to be the case. Perhaps someone at the newspaper thought stripes of sunlight on the body were actual stripes and made them stronger, or perhaps it was done deliberately to make it look like what they thought a thylacine should look like. I don't know what the answer is, but the stripes do look really fake.

    The whole photo is odd, and it certainly (in my opinion) isn't a photo to which a person can say "that is definitely ...[insert option here]".
     
  20. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    I'm still waiting for a photo or better still, a video (preferably one shot in Tasmania not the mainland) which will make me sit up and say-'now that just might be a Thylacine'- but of course I've been waiting several decades already for that and so far no one has produced the goods.:(