Portal Curiosities: Now Only in Museums

The Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus), also known as the Tasmanian Tiger or Tasmanian Wolf, was a carnivorous marsupial that occurred in Australia. It was described as a doglike predator with rows of vertical stripes on its back. Few observational studies were conducted on wild or captive Thylacines and the species was hunted into extinction in the early 1930s. The Thylacine is an example of an organism that "survives" only in the natural history records housed in museum collections. iDigBio has records of over 30 specimens of Thylacine in the Portal, and the specimen pictured to the right is from in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.

 

Featured in the July iDigBio e-newsletter

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