Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #thylacine
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Let's talk about thylacines.
The last known #thylacine died on this day in 1936 - it was accidentally locked out of the indoor part of its enclosure at a #Hobart zoo, and died of exposure.
A 🧵based on stories of how we've represented thylacines, from my #PlatypusMatters book...
The last known #thylacine died on this day in 1936 - it was accidentally locked out of the indoor part of its enclosure at a #Hobart zoo, and died of exposure.
A 🧵based on stories of how we've represented thylacines, from my #PlatypusMatters book...
Shortly after the British invaded #Tasmania, a #thylacine was caught & illustrated in 1806. As it lay dying, its captor described how its wounds made it "exceedingly inactive and stupid". Scientists in England twisted these words to imply #thylacines were generally unintelligent.
Over the following decades, accounts painted #thylacines as a mysterious, savage killer of the wilderness - coming out of the shadows to kill sheep. (We know now it is unlikely a #thylacine would have hunted many sheep).
My last PhD paper is (finally) out: bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…
@BMC_series
In this #openaccess jam, we look at the idea of convergent #evolution between the #thylacine and the 'usual suspects' - the #wolf or dog
THREAD > 1/18
@BMC_series
In this #openaccess jam, we look at the idea of convergent #evolution between the #thylacine and the 'usual suspects' - the #wolf or dog
THREAD > 1/18
One of the most obvious aspects of the thylacine is that they don't really look much like any marsupial living today.
They do, however, look a lot like placental canids (wolves, dogs & relatives).
So much so that they are sometimes known as the 'marsupial wolf'!
🎨: Carl Buell
They do, however, look a lot like placental canids (wolves, dogs & relatives).
So much so that they are sometimes known as the 'marsupial wolf'!
🎨: Carl Buell
The resemblance to canids means that the thylacine is a classic example of convergent evolution, where unrelated lineages independently evolve similar features.
Examples are all around: bats & birds, whales & fish, and crab.
3/18
Examples are all around: bats & birds, whales & fish, and crab.
3/18
You might have heard the news about photos claimed to show LIVE #THYLACINES. Inspired, I’m here going to discuss other alleged LIVING #THYLACINE photos. Yes, it’s another #TetZoocryptomegathread, wherein I take a detailed look at #cryptozoology-themed photographic evidence...
This time round, it’s the turn of the Kevin Cameron photos of November 1984, taken in south-west Western Australia and said to show a live #thylacine...
#Thylacines, as you surely know, are not supposed to be living on the Australian mainland in modern times and are also supposed to have gone extinct sometime around 1936…
Time to embark on another of my #cryptozoology PHOTO MEGA-THREADS (from hereon, #TetZoocryptomegathread). Today: Rilla Martin’s 1964 Ozenkadnook tiger photo, aka the ‘Rilla critter’ photo, from western Victoria, Australia. It's one of my favourite mystery animal photos. Ok...
The photo – a single black and white image – shows a vaguely dog-shaped, long-tailed mammal in the scrub, assumed to be a predatory marsupial of some sort, but one which doesn’t match anything known to science.
The story is that Martin was holidaying with her cousin Bushy (yeah, ‘Bushy’) at Goroke on the Victoria/South Australia border (map from Google maps)...
