Robert Paddle’s book, ‘The Last Tasmanian Tiger: The History and Extinction of the Thylacine‘ has quite extensive notes on thylacine behaviour. By all reports, they were extremely intelligent creatures.

Additionally, there are reports of captive thylacines hearing the approach of humans several minutes before the property dogs did.

According to the book, no individual dog would choose to fight a thylacine - it would be too timid. The only way in which a dog might win a fight with a (full grown) thylacine is if there were several dogs, and it would help if the farmer were shooting at it too.

One last interesting report (from the book) is of a trapper who put a rope around the neck of a thylacine. He forced the thylacine to walk about half a mile and from then on - as if accepting the new authority figure - he marched the thylacine into town and down the main street. All the while, the thylacine heeled beside its new master as if it had been trained to do so all its life.

There is even a report of one owner taking a thylacine along to a societal meeting. By all accounts they were able to behave as domestically as any dog.

Check out the the thylacine museum online also - it has 7 videos.

Cor2879 - in terms of intellect? Probably not that brainy. Marsupials are notably low down on the mammalian brainpower scale.

I believe it is pronounced ‘Thigh-luh-seen’

I know it is a disputed topic but I have heard little evidence supporting the thylacine’s mainland release.

To cor2879 - It has been said that thylacines are very timid animals which do their best to avoid humans. They are mainly nocturnal/crepuscular hunters. There are only a couple records of thylacine aggression towards humans, one of which involving a very famous picture of “Benjamin” opening his/her huge jaws - after the photographer took the picture, the thylacine allegedly bit him in the behind!