A pair of thylacines photographed at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo circa 1906.
Credit: Wikimedia
CAMBRIDGE: New evidence that the recently extinct thylacine - Tasmania's 'king of beasts' - may have been less wolf-like than previously thought, according to a new study.
In popular science vernacular, the thylacine has been commonly referred to as either the 'marsupial wolf', due to its superficially dog-like features, or 'Tasmanian tiger', due to its striped fur coat. A quantitative, skeletal analysis by Christine Janis and Borja Figueiredo from Brown University in Rhode Island provides support for the suggestion that thylacines were not pursuit predators, with particular emphasis on the animal's ability to rotate its elbow.
The study, published in Biology Letters, questions the degree to which the thylacine was a 'marsupial wolf', and perhaps suggests 'Tasmanian tiger' to be a more appropriate vernacular label.
""It's become the icon of marsupial and placental convergence, so it's a good thing to point out that it's not the exact analogue of the wolf," said Janis. "Nobody has really done a more modern quantification of any part of the skeleton, that we did here."
Discovering the 'Tasmanian tiger'
The thylacine was the largest marsupial carnivore on Australia's mainland, the last of them thought to have lived up to 3,000 years ago. Shortly after the appearance of dingoes 4,000 years ago, the dwindling population of thylacines lived exclusively in Tasmania.
When discovered, scientists saw the now-extinct animal as a textbook example of convergence between marsupials (such as kangaroos) and placentals (such as wolves). The skull of the thylacine received much attention, with several studies confirming the animal's carnivorous diet and wolf-like skull - its species name, cynocephalus, translates to 'dog head'.
But recently, researchers have been increasingly sceptical of the evolutionary link between thylacines and wolves, suggesting that thylacines specialised on smaller prey instead of large-prey pack hunting, and that their skeleton is not well-adapted to the running abilities of dogs.
Head of a wolf, elbow of a tiger
The new study now adds postcranial evidence that the thylacine was poorly adapted to wolf-like behaviour, confirming rare eyewitness reports of more predatory hunting rather than pack pursuit. Though several morphological characteristics were examined, the most telling was the thylacine's elbow.
To exhaust their prey, pack-hunting wolves have their forepaws 'locked in' for marathon running, whereas other predatory animals have more flexible, manipulative forearms. By comparing the thylacine elbow to more than 30 other animals, Janis and Figueirido discovered that, similar to the latter group, the thylacine's elbow allowed for both pronation and supination of the forearm - a highly flexible, non-wolf-like characteristic.
But this is not to say that the thylacine is cat-like. Its claws are not retractile or effective in grabbing prey. Rather, it simply lacks some of the essential features of dogs that are associated with fast running. The head is wolf-like, but the postcranial skeleton is not.
Thylacine
Surely not closely related to either wolf or tiger (in fact equidistant to both in evolutionary terms)?
thylacines
never heard of them. 1788,
we've always been disprespectful of nature.
long ago, as well.
people are the problem.
interesting research,though.
interesting but outdated
I was interested to read that dingoes could have anything to do with the disappearance of the Thylacine. As new genetic studies show that the Dingo has lived in Australia for over 15,000 yrs NOT the 4000 yrs noted here. Therefore the Dingoes and Thylacine lived together for 1000's of years. But as with the Thylacine, we in our arrogance, have decided that Dingoes also have no right to live/ We are still covering our continent with toxic 1080, both in farm lands and national parks- resulting in the fragmentation of our only land based predator -the Dingo. The reduction in strong family groups of dingoes have been connected to increase in poisonous jellyfish,feral mesopredators,and pigs. AND sadly a reduction in small native animals.