My name is Thylacine. Some people call me Tasmanian tiger because I have striped back . Some people call me Tasmanian wolf . May be I look like a wolf. Do I ?
I was a native of continental Australia. My relatives lived in Tasmania and New Guinea too . Tasmania and New Guinea are islands and are part of Australia.
I was the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times. Do you know what a Marsupial is? Marsupials are kind of mammals whose babies are born incompletely developed and are typically carried and suckled in a pouch on the mother's belly.
I was the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times. Do you know what a Marsupial is? Marsupials are kind of mammals whose babies are born incompletely developed and are typically carried and suckled in a pouch on the mother's belly.
Our species , that is the modern thylacine , first appeared on the earth about 4 million years ago.
Location and Habitat
We originally used to roam all over the mainland of Australia, but was confined to the island of Tasmania for the last 3,000 years. We used to live in forest and scrubland close to our grazing preys like wallabies.
Appearance
Let me tell you how I look.
I resembled a large, short-haired dog with a stiff tail similar to that of a Kangaroo. My body colour was yellow-brown with dark stripes half way down my back which got me the nickname, "Tiger”. I had dense and soft hair in my body. My ears were erect and rounded and about 8 cm long . My belly was cream-coloured. We typically had a length of 1 to 1.3 m and our tail was about half a metre. Our height was about 60 cm and we weighed about 20 to 30 kg.
We were one among the two marsupials to have a pouch in both male and female. The other is the water opossum. The female had a backward facing pouch. The male thylacine had a pouch that act as a protective sheath, covering the male's external reproductive organs while he runs through thick bush.
You know one interesting thing ? I could open my jaw upto 120 degrees and I had 46 teeth !!!!!
Diet
Do you know what I used to eat?
I was a carnivorous animal. I was a nocturnal hunter hunting other marsupials like wallabies, smaller animals like rodent and also sheep. I hunted at night by smell using my pace and stamina to run down smaller animals until they became tired. I used to use my wide opening jaws to rip out its preys neck .I liked to feed only from the fresh kill.
Breeding
We, the Thylacines typically used to breed once a year, with the young being carried in their mother’s backward facing pouch. After approximately 6-8 months the young ones too big for the pouch were left alone in a sheltered place while their mothers went for food.
Why did we become extinct?
We were living happily. That is when the most unfortunate things happened to us,
A wild dog called “dingo” arrived in mainland of Australia. We had to compete with him for food. The dingo hunted for the same food, but was a lot more efficient and adaptable. Slowly we became extinct about 2000 years ago.
Although we were extinct in the mainland of Australia, we survived in Tasmania till 1930. European settlers were there in Tsmania. The introduction of sheep in 1824 led to conflict between the settlers and thylacines. We were blamed for killing their sheep. Government offered rewards to people for killing us. There were other reasons too for our extinction.
We had to compete with wild dogs introduced by European settlers; we lost most of our habitats due to grazing and farming. There was some disease too that killed some of us.
We became extremely rare by late 1920’s.
The last known Thylacine to be killed in the wild was killed in 1930 by Wilf Batty, a farmer from Tasmania.
The last captive thylacine, later referred to as "Benjamin" was captured in 1933 sent to the Hobart Zoo where it lived for three years. This thylacine died on 7 September 1936. It is believed to have died as the result of neglect—locked out of its sheltered sleeping quarters, it was exposed to a rare occurrence of extreme Tasmanian weather: extreme heat during the day and freezing temperatures at night. To commemorate our loss 7th September is declared as 'Threatened Species Day' in Tasmania . This is to raise awareness of all the threatened species in the world, and to encourage action.
We held the status of endangered species until the 1980s.But nobody could confirm our existence. So Tasmanian government declared as extinct in 1986.
Today our pictures have been used extensively as a symbol of Tasmania. I am featured on the officialTasmanian coat of arms and also on the official logos of Tourism Tasmania.Since 1998, my picture has been prominently displayed on Tasmanian vehicle number plates.
We remain now only in pictures. That is my story friends. So , dear friends, I would like to conclude with this small piece of advice.
Every creature has as much right to life as you do. So, protect and care for them.
PLEASE DON'T SHOOT animals WITH GUNS, DO WITH CAMERAS IF YOU WANT.
