Thylacine

Thylacine ... animal that this wonderful world will never see, except in pictures. Marsupial with the dog's head, so it sounds its scientific name- Thylacinus cynocephalus - existed in our land back in 1000 BC.Confirmation of this - many rock drawings. A first scientific description of the animal was only in the early XIX , already after the first Europeans arrived in a magical place called the Island of Tasmania . Before there were mentions of animals with "claws like a tiger," "the dog, like a tiger cat", but clearly could not understand what kind of fauna species in question.

Back in VIII - early XIX centuries marsupial wolf was quite numerous in the rain forests of the Australian state. 

But primitive fear and dislike of people utterly destroyed marsupial wolf. He also called the Tasmanian tiger, tilatsin . The last instance, living in captivity has been recorded, filmed in the late 20's of the last century.

Before the Aborigines - Tasmanians , acquired livestock, Tasmanian wolf was on excellent terms with them. But the sheep were brought here for a marsupial predator irresistible.

 Even when the population is significantly reduced, the wolf has long served as a target of sport hunting. The last animal was killed in the early XX century, May 13, 1930. And after 6 years died last Tasmanian wolf in captivity at the zoo of Hobart, capital of Tasmania.

True, there were cases tilatsinom meeting, but they have not been confirmed.

Thylacine was quite large animals about two meters in length (including the tail). Thick, stiff gray hair on the back of the beast will appear yellow with 13-19 horizontal stripes of dark brown color. Short erect ears were rounded. Long fall could very well up to 120 degrees, open. Resilient, even more likely, prancing gait, jumping on the feet looked like a kangaroo. But the basic similarity with Australian animals, of course, the bag, fold the skin, where breastfed babies hatched and the Tasmanian wolf.

The National Museum of Australia in Sydney remained preserved in alcohol tilatsina puppies. DNA was taken to start the cloning process has recently slaughtered animals. The experiment failed.

But the hope is that somewhere in the dense forests  of Tasmania survived representatives of this species. From time to time there are reports that the Tasmanian wolf found. However, this is not documented.

Today is World Red Book defines animal called Tasmanian wolf as extinct animals