Comments on: New Thylacine Footage: Just Released

By: DWA

DWA — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 16:22:23 +0000

Fox: no way. At least I’d bet no way, and I am no betting man. Here is one of the few bets on which I’d put money.

I’ve seen a lot of foxes, most of them very recently. Most fox sightings will look as much like a cat as like a dog.

Don’t know what this is. But I echo everyone else who says: foxes just don’t move like that.

By: Krimeg

Krimeg — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 08:45:25 +0000

Wilk Workowaty's footage reminds me now more of a Thylacoleo than a Thylacine, even though it's a quite blurry video. A new study revealed here suggests Thylacoleonid had a more dog-like skull than a cat-like one. Moreover, the animal shown here seems more compact than a Thylacine.

By: loopstheloop

loopstheloop — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 04:53:07 +0000

The mind boggles- there’s nothing in the ‘new footage’ to suggest other than a young fox, and then ‘convincing’ 1973 footage? It’s the first I’ve seen of it here. Again, a blurry canine character trots across the shot followed by a low-resolution still claiming to see a single, solitary stripe on the thinly striped rump of an animal in an image so pixelated it looks like a 4-bit space invader… and then a spliced in shot at different resolution, lighting, location and body position of a random wallaby. Oooh, look at its long tail- no way that’s a dog/fox/dingo. Well, you’re right. Well done!

I can’t believe this obvious ruse is posted here as possible footage when it looks more like a child’s cack-handed joke- and then the credence lent to it!

By: CoffeeKitsune

CoffeeKitsune — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 23:36:39 +0000

But does a Dingo, or any dog breed, have a tail that long? The tail reaches the ground in that 1st video… I’ve never seen a dog with a tail that touched the floor as it walked/ran.

By: Rainman

Rainman — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 07:26:25 +0000

I’m usually a lurker not so much a commenter on this site as the majority of my work is with domestic animals not wild ones, but thylacines are possibly my all-time favorite cryptid and one I dearly hope is still out there somewhere.

However, having said that and having looked at this footage, I’m afraid I’m with the skeptics on this one. When I first watched the footage I so badly wanted to believe – especially since so many “thylacine sightings” come from the mainland – I was extremely excited. But the more I watched it the more I saw… a dog. A dingo or dingo hybrid more probably.

Granted there isn’t much to grant scale and also granted red foxes are most certainly present here in Aus, but think of the difference in size: thylacines averaged 100 – 130cm long, 60 cm a the shoulder and weighed an average of 20-30kg – the size of your average sheep or cattle dog (sorry guys, Australian, not sure what that equates to in pounds, feet & inches.) A fox is only about 70 -90 cm long and weighs an average of 5-10 kg.

Dingoes are closer to thylacines in size (117 – 124cm long, 52-60 cm high at the shoulder and about 13 – 27kg depending on the weather and what part of Australia you’re in!)

While I agree this animal does have short, sharp movements as seen in smaller animals like the quoll, the fox and so forth, I’ve seen plenty of dingoes move like that. Depending on the sub-species and their interaction with man (and their general health); dingoes have also been known to run with their head and tail down like that. Those with close associations with human communities behave more like dogs but those that does are not unlike wolves in the way they move: head and tail low most of the time, especially when suspicious of something as this animal appears to be.

Also, dingoes have a colour mutation that is quite golden in the forequarters and darkens to a sable in the hind, which would explain this animal apparently darker hindquarters. Not stripes, just darker coat.

I really, really, really hope I’m wrong and I’m the first to admit I’m no expert – but take a look at this footage of a dingo chasing a car and see what you think. I’m just throwing another suspect into the mix!

By: Gundeman

Gundeman — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 21:30:31 +0000

The 2009 footage looks like a large Spotted-tail Quoll, Dasyurus maculatus, to me. I have seen a few of these animals in the wild and this is exactly how they move. The movements appear to be too rapid to be a larger animal. The 1973 footage looks like a Thylacine, not so much on a frame by frame basis but by the appearance of the whole animal- the small rounded ears, the position of the long tail, the large head and the gait discount a dog or fox. The Wilk Worowaty footage also appears to be more like Thylacine, although I would be less likely to bet the farm on it. It is important to bear in mind that Thylacines were distributed right across Australia before the arrival of the dingo. I have done a lot of work as a public-contact ranger and have had about 15 Thylacine sightings reported to me over the years- most have been from the mainland, from Victoria, through the Australian Alps and up to the NSW/Qld border. Some of the descriptions were very detailed and left me in no doubt that the people describing the animals were either very good liars who were familiar with the features of a thylacine, or had actually seen one. However, people who spoke to me did so in confidance for fear of public ridicule.

By: Mahalo X

Mahalo X — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 18:25:20 +0000

We have red and silver fox all over the countryside here in Oregon, this does NOT move like a fox. Also while the head and body of the animal in the video could be almost any canid, the tail is certainly NOT that of any fox I have witnessed. If not the elusive Thylacine, I would guess some sort of coyote or coy-dog.
My inner cryptozoologist really hopes this is the ‘genuine article’.

By: nikki123nd

nikki123nd — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 01:36:20 +0000

The animal seems to resemble a primate on four legs. It has long limbs, it’s hindquarters are raised, and it run like one. I think it could have been a baboon or something that escaped a zoo, it’s owners home, or a black market trade.

The only thing that would disprove this is it’s joints. It’s legs (and/or arms) don’t seem to have flexible joints as a primate would.

By: Thermite

Thermite — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 21:54:09 +0000

How many people have been out (in the real world) and watch a red fox skipping about, it ain’t like that I know (many years tracking and stalking and had foxes withing 10 feet of me on many occasions)

The head, tail and locomotion is all wrong.

That said can’t be sure it’s anything specific but does hint of thylacine.

As for blurry cameras, not everyone in the world has an up to date camera phone, heck my dad doesn’t even own a camera.

JMHO

By: lettuce1001

lettuce1001 — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 04:31:02 +0000

Tacos: The thylacine is/was a marsupial carnivore — if alive it’s the largest, and the last of it’s family. It has other cousins in the Dasyuromorphia Order, such as quolls and Tasmanian devils, but those relations are awfully distant, and wouldn’t produce a hybrid.

(Although if a thylacine were to be cloned, the plan was to have the zygote implanted in a Devil…)

A thylacine/fox pairing could happen I suppose, but it would produce nothing except a kinky diary entry for the thylacine.

(Speaking of Dasyuromorphs… anyone here feel a little guilty sometimes pining for the thylacine while the Tasmanian Devil lurches noisily towards extinction? I know some in the Thylo-hunting communities think the focus on the Tiger overshadows real necessary work that could save the Devil. It’s an interesting discussion in a world that will have many other “are they really extinct” mysteries as more and more animals get the thylacine treatment…)