The discovery of the remains of the last Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus)

Abstract

ABSTRACT When the last known Tasmanian tiger or thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) died in Hobart Zoo, during the night of 7th September 1936, its body was reportedly forwarded to the Tasmanian Museum. The apparent failure of the museum to preserve the body has always been disquieting to thylacine researchers. A detailed examination of the unpublished zoo and museum archival records has resolved this anomaly. The apparent preservation failure being occasioned by searching for the wrong specimen: the much photographed and filmed penultimate thylacine on display. This research has resulted in the discovery and identification of a later thylacine arrival at the zoo, the endling of the species: an aged, adult female, whose body was indeed forwarded to the museum upon her death, and preserved therein; and we explain why no contemporary details of this arrival were recorded in the zoological collection registers. Now, for the first time, eighty-six years after the event, we present photographs identifying the skin and skeleton of the last-known living thylacine.