To the best of my knowledge the only zoos outside Australia ever to have thylacines were:- Antwerp Berlin Cologne London (which had at least 20 between 1850 & 1931) Paris New York Washington Tim
No-one would be happier than me if I am wrong, but I honestly don't believe that the thylacine exists any more. The latest issue of "Australian Zoologist" has two articles on the thylacine, illustrated with many photos, some of which I have never seen before. Photos of thylacines are usually of individual animals of indeterminate sex; however one of these pictures is of a female and three well-grown cubs photographed at a small private zoo in Hobart 99 years ago. Apparently the whole family of male, female and four cubs was captured together but the male and one of the cubs died at the time of capture. What happened to the group is not discussed at length, although it is mentioned that one of the cubs was sent at maturity to London Zoo. The image of this small family is powerful and moving, and emphasises just what the world has lost with the extinction of this species.
Are you sure it was taken that long ago?.If so, it must be a different family group to the one comprising a mother and three cubs captured about 1925 by a trapper called Mullins and all sent to the Hobart zoo. I've always presumed the photo of mother and three cubs in captivity was these particular animals. Its generally regarded that the longest lived of those cubs( surviving about`12 years at the zoo) was the very last Thylacine in captivity which died in 1936.
Pertinax: Re the photo of the mother and her cubs; according to the accompanying article, the animals arrived at the Beaumaris Zoo in July 1909 and the photo was taken in January 1910, so apparently a different group to the one you refer to.
I know of two 'family' photos of captured Thylacines, and possibly a third. In one(the oldest photo?) there are bars in the picture. The other two, more widely known, appear to be of the same family of four. In one, two animals are standing, one sitting, and one lying. In the other, the mother (larger with a notched ear) and three cubs are sitting on their haunches in a row facing the camera. Both pix have the same straw floor and wooden board background and this was definately at Beaumaris. But it seems (both?) these two photos were taken before 1915, wheras I've always thought that 'the last survivor' was the longest- lived(12 years) young of this group and that this picture was taken soon after their capture in 1924. Maybe this wasn't the 'Mullins' group after all?
The photo which is in the latest "Australian Zoologist" is indeed the one with two animals standing, one sitting and one laying down. The name of the photographer is given as Williamson.
Apparently that photo appeared as early as 1915 so it can't be the last family (mother & 3 cubs) exhibited by the Beaumaris zoo, as that group weren't caught until 1924.
Are thylacines still around? Consider this.. I had to jump in and reply to this one, even without reading the rest of the thread. Forgive me if I double-up on info. Fair call. I don't know how often the rhino was sighted in SE Asia until it turned up in front of a camera trap. The South American short-eared dog went over 20 years without even a sighting before being recaptured by a camera trap. The record-taker would have to be Australia's Gilbert's potoroo - in the order of 115 years between drinks, *despite* concerted searches! Wallabies kicking on after 60 years don't rate a mention because Regular Jo probably couldn't pick a rare one from a common one, but if the species were highly distinct - as with the thylacine - then maybe you just might get more sightings than you'd otherwise expect. I had a friend who was a large-animal vet in Tas for about 5 or 6 years. I asked him, in that time, how many devils he saw while driving about the country side. On average, he reckoned, roughly one every six months. That's for a species whose *minimum* population size was estimated at 25,000 individuals at that time (having just crashed from 125,000). If the thylacine exists in numbers of about 1,000 individuals, that would mean, on average, he might expect to see one once every 12.5 years. Tigerman's book suggests a current maximum population of about 400 individuals, and over half those in Tasmania's south-west where there are very, very, very few roads. Thylacine's sense of hearing was markedly better than that of dogs' and their sense of smell described as "exceptional". If the thylacine is a shy, retreating creature, you would be very hard pressed to surprise one on foot in Tasmania's south west - and even the people who do go there generally stick to tracks and number perhaps in the tens of thousands per year. Some stretches of wilderness in the order of 80km x 20km are estimated to receive about 4 human visitors every 2 years or so. There are at least 4 undisputed pre-extinction reports of thylacines from south-west Tas including inland, away from the coast. The last was in 1932, well after the bounty pressure had declined incredibly due to shortage of numbers. Again - they *were* in SW Tas. Kevin Cameron's photographs of a juvenile thylacine, allegedly from south-west Western Australia in 1985 deserve an explanation, as does the video footage taken by the Doyles in South Australia in 1973, as does the "Charleville" footage taken in Queensland in 1995. Except for the thylacine mummy found at Thylacine Hole in the Nullarbor Plain, Western Australia - carbon dated to 3,000+ years, but the discoverer reported a decomposing odur, fly larvae pupal cases and soft eye and tongue tissue. And the thylacine humerus collected from the Kimberly in north-west Western Australia and associated with bones dated to about 180BP (which - on rumour, granted - were lying underneath the thylacine bone). Disagree again. Robert Paddle's book described how the naturalist Cambrian personally sighted the remains of two thylcines - one freshly killed in the Blue Mountains east of Sydney, the other, by deduction, from the Flinders Ranges in SA. Both examinations dated early 1800s. All of this needs an explanation before mainland survival of the thylacine can be dismissed. As do the first-hand eyewitness accounts of Aboriginal people of the Flinders Ranges region (also in Paddle's book, dating early 1800s again) and another 2 newspaper references to thylacines shot and killed in the Megalong Valley in the Blue Mountains east of Sydney. Agreed. Just like the South American short-eared dog disappeared for 20+ years. Except that the Tasmanian police have already been implicated in covering up evidence that two people were killed for voicing their opposition to protecting Tasmania's unique landscape (WLMD Newswatch - Killed for protecting the Tasmanian tiger? - Where Light Meets Dark (www.wherelightmeetsdark.com)). And I know of two people who have had bricks smashed through their front house windows after claiming to have seen a thylacine. Can you imagine you are 4th generation forestry worker? Can you imagine you are in a multi-billion dollar industry? Can you imagine at the drop of a hat the source of your industry - which employs tens of thousands of people directly, hence supports their families and provides business to thousands of other small businesses - gets instantly deprived? Think it won't happen? It happened in WA. An invertebrate, known from a single cave in the Kimberly stalled an estimated $10b - $20b mining industry. As you say - can you imagine the international outrage if an iconic species like the thylacine were proved but not protected? Now consider well upwards of 10% of the state's population either directly or indirectly depends on forestry and mining industries in Tasmania. You've got to live here. We've wiped out about as many mammal species as the rest of the world combined in the last 400 years! I'd love to see them too
you're going to be waiting a looooooong time if you're expecting a response from patrick perhaps you should have taken the time to read through the thread: you might then have noticed that you already posted responses to much of the above a couple of years ago, including bringing up the short-eared dog (which isn't even a good comparative species given the vastly different behaviour and habitat, and human density of geographical location).
If that is the series of still photos of an animal apparently digging behind a bush, a couple of which appeared with an article in New Scientist magazine, I am surprised at anybody who can't see that; 1. it appears to be a static, not a live animal. 2. even if live, it has fat dark bands painted(?) on a brown back, neither of which resemble the colour or markings of a Thylacine at all.
Interesting concept. It was always assumed Thylacines hunted by sight or scent and doggedly pursued their prey at a trot or canter- running it down 'after a long chase' But the real hunting technique was(obviously) never known. There may be another clue in one of the old film clips of a Thylacine in Hobart Zoo, where the animal is being teased or stimulated by a keeper moving something outside the enclosure- its alert reaction in following a hand or food looks extremely quick- more like a fox than dog or wolf. The 'ambush predator' theory would better tie in with the Thylacine's striped markings too- like a real tiger these would help conceal it in vegetation while it was lying in wait for prey. A camouflage pattern isn't much value to an animal that openly hunts its prey wolf-style.
This thread seems to be the central hub of Zoochat thylacine conversation so I'm posting my queries here rather than start a new thread. 1. Does anybody know where the museums are that people can actually see a thylacine? I saw one at the London Natural History Museum. I looked for one at the Smithsonian but didn't see one. I see in the gallery that there are pictures of thylacines at Dresden. I assume that there must be some on view at Australian museums? 2. Does anybody know if there is any ongoing work on trying to clone thylacines and/or sequence their whole genome? Has that whole effort pretty much ceased?
Have not heard anything on the cloning for a while. Here is a good site with info on where they were kept. The Thylacine Museum - The Thylacine in Captivity: Zoos, Circuses and Menageries (page 1)
I don’t claim that the following is an exhaustive list of UK museums with mounted thylacines on display, but stuffed thylacines are on show at the following:- • Natural History Museum (London) • Tring Zoological Museum • National Museum of Scotland (Edinburgh) • Leeds City Museum • Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery (Glasgow) • Kendal Museum • Bristol Museum and Art Gallery (NB The mounted thylacine in Bristol died in London Zoo on Christmas Day 1914) I’ve also been fortunate enough to be taken “behind the scenes” to see off-exhibit mounted thylacines in:- • Booth Museum of Natural History (Brighton) • National Museum (Cardiff) • Oxford University Museum
