The marsupial wolf, or thylacine, is an extinct animal that lived in Australia and New Guinea three thousand years ago. In Tasmania, the last individual disappeared from the face of the earth in 1936. It is believed that thylacine has never attacked a person. Juveniles were even tameable.
Description
Tasmanian, or marsupial wolf is a carnivore of fairly large size. The body in length reached 1 meter, and the tail - 50 centimeters. The largest were males, they could grow to a total length of 2 meters.
The surviving photographs and drawings confirm that the wolf looked like a dog. This is confirmed by the preserved animal skulls.
The tail is thick at the base and thin at the end, which gives reason to attribute the animal to the genus of marsupials. The wolf also had bent legs at the back, thanks to which it seemed that the animal was skipping. On the front paws of the animal there were 5 fingers, on the hind legs only 4. But (unlike ordinary dogs), the thylacine relied on all 5 fingers, since they are arranged in a row.
Wool is rough and dense, short. Coloration on the back with grey,brown and yellow shades. There were necessarily transverse dark brown stripes in the amount of 19 to 25 pieces. The color of the coat on the belly is slightly lighter than on the rest of the body. On the muzzle there were marks around the eyes of white. The ears of the wolf are short and erect, slightly rounded at the edges.
An amazing feature of the marsupial wolf is a very wide mouth that could open 120 degrees. At the moment of yawning, the animal opened its mouth up to 180 degrees. In the paste, the thylacine had 46 teeth, other dogs only had 42 teeth.
The females had a pouch very similar to that of the Tasmanian devil, consisting of a fold of skin and covering two pairs of nipples. The spine of the animal is not very flexible and is more similar in structure to the spine of a kangaroo. Therefore, the thylacine stood perfectly on its hind legs. Some eyewitnesses claimed that they saw the wolf walking on two hind legs.
Typical behavior
These wolves preferred to live in the plains, where there are a lot of grasses, and in sparse forests. When the onset of man on nature began, the wolves had to move to more humid forests. There they hid in hollows and burrows, rocky caves.
The marsupial wolf led a nocturnal lifestyle, occasionally getting out on a sunny day to bask. The animal led a solitary lifestyle. During times of famine, wolves would gather in small packs to make it easier to hunt.
The animal made guttural and dull sounds that often frightened the people of Tasmania.
Dietfood
In Australia, the marsupial wolf ate medium and large representatives of the vertebrate world. They were echidnas, lizards and birds.
In Tasmania, when sheep and poultry were brought to the island, the wolf began to hunt for domestic animals. The predator did not disdain those individuals that fell into the trap. The animal never returned to half-eaten prey.
Reproduction
Wolves carried their cubs in a special bag-fold, like a kangaroo. As a rule, two to four babies were born. They were very underdeveloped, but after 3 months they were already leaving their mother's pouch. Until 9 months old, wolf babies no longer climbed into the fold, but lived with their mother.
Thylacine's pregnancy lasted about 35 days. The animal reproduced year-round, but the fertility is low. The period of full maturity could not be established.
Under conditions of captivity, it was not possible to increase the wolf population.
How the animal was found
Some reports on the marsupial wolf put forward the bold theory that the animal lived on Earth as early as the period of the Gondwana mainland. This is a supercontinent that united 4 continents, and it was about 40-30 million years ago. Then the thylacine inhabited all these territories. But initially it appeared in the north of South America, then through modern Antarctica it got to Australia and New Guinea. Then the animal population was prosperous. In support of this theory, scientists provide evidence that the remains of animals were found in Patagonia, very reminiscent of the marsupial wolf.
AfterSouth and North America are connected, about 8-7 million years ago, placental representatives of the fauna appeared on the continent, which forced the marsupials out of their habitat. Cold weather has come to Antarctica, wolves have disappeared there.
The marsupial wolf was first mentioned around 1000 BC. Rock paintings and engravings of this period depicting an animal have been found.
Europeans first saw the animal in Tasmania around 1642, but even then the population was on the verge of extinction. Abel Tasman wrote about this, he recorded that the expedition found an animal on the island, it looked like a wolf, but with claws like a tiger. In 1772, Marion-Dufren described the wolf as a "brindle cat". Although it is still not clear which animal the researchers wrote about.
Officially confirmed "meeting" with the animal marsupial wolf was recorded only in 1792. French naturalist Jacques Labillardier wrote about this meeting.
In 1805, an article appeared in the Sydney Journal with a detailed description of the wolf, which was compiled by Van Diemen, the current governor.
The scientific description was only compiled in 1808. It was Inspector George Harris. At first, the animal was assigned to the genus of American opossums. And only in 1810 the animal was assigned to the order of marsupial wolves.
Why did the population disappear
Today you can see the marsupial wolf in the photo, drawings. It is believed that the animal disappeared on the Australian mainland 3 thousand years ago. Mainthe reasons were diseases and rivalry with the dingo dog, in which the latter survived. It is also believed that man mercilessly exterminated these wolves.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the animal was still widely represented on the island of Tasmania. However, in the 30s of the same century, the mass destruction of wolves began. This happened against the background of the fact that they hunted livestock. Large bonuses were given for the head of a wolf. Many legends appeared around this creature, it was called almost the devil.
Already by 1863, the wolf could be found only in hard-to-reach forests. The last point was set at the beginning of the 20th century. It is believed that dog distemper was then brought to the island along with new imported breeds of dogs. As a result, the marsupial wolf did not survive; in 1928, a law was passed on the territory of Tasmania to protect this animal. The last free wolf was killed in 1930. And the last animal kept in captivity died in 1936. It is believed that the wolf died due to the low genetic diversity of the species, simply degenerated.
Search for survivors
Despite everything, many naturalists still hope that the marsupial wolf, or thylacine, has survived in the dense forests of Tasmania. Information appeared in the media that people met with an animal very similar to thylacine, but not a single confirmation was provided. No wolf capture facts.
In 2005, The Bulletin magazine (Australia) offered a reward of 950 thousand US dollars for the capture of an animal. But the premiumstill remains unclaimed.
Later, in 2016 and 2017, more information appeared that animals were discovered that are very similar to the marsupial wolf. Even one of the traffic cameras captured an image of the animal, but for obvious reasons, the place where the photo was taken was not disclosed.
The fact that they saw wolves is often said by local natives living in the national park. At the same time, they assure that this is not a dingo dog or another animal, namely the thylacine, which they call the "moon tiger".
Cloning attempts
In 1999, an unprecedented project began - the cloning of thylacine. The National Austrian Museum (Sydney) took up the process. In the museum itself, the cells of the animal's cubs are preserved in alcohol form. Scientists even managed to extract the cells, but they turned out to be damaged, this happened in 2002.
In 2005, the termination of the project was already announced. But thanks to the huge efforts of scientists, it was still possible to “wake up” some genes and they were even implanted in a mouse embryo.
In 2009, scientists even managed to decipher the animal's mitochondrial genome by examining wolf fur. What will happen next? See you soon.
