A Message from the Past - Curious case of Tasmanian Wolf

Here is a question for you, which animal is a tiger and a wolf and a marsupial? 

Answer, as most of you might know already, is Tasmanian wolf (or Tasmanian tiger). Known to scientists as Thylacine, this unique and remarkable animal was actually neither a wolf nor a tiger. Thylacine was a marsupial once found all over the island of Tasmania, before ‘Humanification’ happened to the island.

Whether you call it Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf or Thylacine, it is an undeniable fact that the creature we are talking about was majestic in every aspect. Once called the largest marsupial carnivore around the globe, Thylacine is now just a happy memory. Needless to say, extinction of Tasmanian wolf is another damage that nature sustained due to the acts of man. Destruction of the natural habitat, introduction of exotic species on the island of Tasmania, like dogs that competed with them (thylacine) for food, along with the killing of wandering thylacines that unfortunately trespassed in the agricultural land, all resulted in the ultimate eradication of the species from the face of Earth.

Recently (19th of May to be exact) NFSA (National Film and Sound Archive of Australia) presented a dozen of videos of the “Last Tasmanian Wolf” called Benjamin, who died in Hobart’s Beaumaris Zoo in 1936. These videos, each comprising of few seconds, were identified by the Tasmanian Tiger Archive Team. The degree of ignorance and limited study regarding the animal can be easily understood by the fact that the gender of Benjamin was unclear until very recently. Although, the species is believed to be extinct for more than 5 decades, some locals believe otherwise. Unconfirmed sightings of animals resembling the Tasmanian wolf are not very uncommon. In fact, majority of travellers who travelled to the distant island of Tasmania in late 1900s came only to try their luck finding the Tasmanian wolf.

Click Here to view the tweet regarding the thylacine videos by NFSA.

Some of you might remember Tasmanian wolf from the movie named “The Hunter” (2011), featuring 3 time golden globe award winner actor Willem Defoe. The movie was based on the novel of same name written by Julia Leigh. In case you’re looking for something to watch during lockdown, I recommend this beautiful movie if you haven’t watched it already. Tasmanian wolf was not only known for the pouch that is a unique trait of all marsupials, but also for the weirdly huge gape of jaws, that you can see in the picture below.

You people might have seen the pouch of Kangaroos which is laterally positioned with the opening on the upper side, that is, the pouch opens toward the face of the animal. On the contrary, Tasmanian wolf’s

Many other species suffered the same fate. The video, mentioned earlier, says “Being forced out of its natural habitat, by the march of civilization, this is the only one in captivity in the world”. That line hits hard. We are just a few miles away from doom, still we carry on our foolish journey. Hope we all will come to our senses soon enough.

Hope you learned something new and interesting….

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