Comments on: Hunting Oz’s Cryptid Tigers

By: Hapa

Hapa — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:34:01 +0000

I agree with Mr. Coleman on Papua New Guinea being the most likely stomping grounds for a Thylacine. That area is a true lost world, and new species are discovered there often. It was not too long ago that a “Hairy wild man of the woods” was discovered there, the Bondegezhou/Dingiso (which turned out to be a new species of Tree Kangaroo!). It offers more than good forest cover and hard terrain to hide a Thylacine.

Mainland Australian sightings of the so-called Queensland Tiger might be viewed by some as a Thylacine, others as a relative, and others as a surviving Marsupial Lion. There needs to be more expeditions into the regions where the cryptid(s?) are spotted. Research into Thylacine hunting techniques used in Tasmania could help out here. The Thylacine did survive the introduction of Dogs into Tasmania without dying out immediately (it took years and other human pressures to render it extinct, aka the straw that broke the Thylacine’s back), so it could still survive.

Tasmania…I think unlikely. A man by the name of Eric Guiler searched for the animals nearly 50 years in Tasmania and came up with nothing. He felt they were gone. Other Thylacine expeditions into Tasmania has so far turned up no definitive proof (Though it would be neat to find a site that showed possible tracks, scat and hairs of surviving Tasmanian Thylacines like we have with Bigfoot).

Eventually, cloning the Thylacine might be the preferred method of mankind seeing a live Thylacine again, whether they survive in some remote region of the world or not. They are already working on doing that for mammoths (5-10 years away, unless a Zombie apocalypse hits us first).

By: mastiff

mastiff — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 07:40:19 +0000

NZ had many animals introduced by the different acclimatisation societies of the day. Many species died in transit or simply died since introduction others failed trials to see if they were worthy of release. I have several books at home mentioning the many species some not mentioned on the site “Pixal” mentions above. A friend of mine wrote a university paper on it and some of the animals they attempted to bring in were truly bizarre. Water buffalo to control water weed comes to mind!

By: Loren Coleman

Loren Coleman — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 00:59:02 +0000

Corrick, I saw The Hunter on “Movies on Demand” on TimeWarner Cable out of Portland, Maine. So, apparently, in some markets in the USA, there are ways to see it before its official “USA release date.”

By: corrick

corrick — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 23:48:51 +0000

It sounds like a spotted quoll. And King’s Island was connected to Tasmania as recently as 2500 years ago.

By: norman-uk

norman-uk — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 22:49:05 +0000

.
Wonder what happened to the aforementioned skin ?

Here is tale of another one from the Ballaret Star circa feb1878 refering to Kings Island off Tasmania.

There. is one dangerous animal on the island, which is a native and a marsupial. It is called a wild cat, is exceedingly fierce and as I was told, afraid of nothing. I saw a skin some four feet long, of a tawny-brown colour, with white spots, a long tail, and bristly whiskers, and I shoud say that the owner of these things in life was a dangerous customer to face unless one had arms to deal with the brute. It appears to keep to the scrub, and very little is heard about it.

How would it have got to this island?

By: corrick

corrick — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 21:14:48 +0000

I would agree with Loren that Papua/Irian Jaya is the most likely location of the most unlikely rediscovery of the thylacine.By far my favorite of all “cryptid” animals. What a tragic story.

Btw, Loren, “The Hunter” won’t be released in the USA until early April. So I’m guessing you saw an Aussie DVD. Yes?

By: Pixal

Pixal — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 05:55:37 +0000

The marsupial cat that you refer to that was introduced to NZ was a Bandicoot, a comprehensive list of species introduced to NZ can be found here.

By: thylo

thylo — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 01:34:24 +0000

I should have said with my above post that this was just _a_ usage of the term “marsupial cat, and not meant to imply the only sense in which the term may be found to have been used.
but, as Dasyurus is a genus with extant member species, and “marsupial cat” is a documented colloquial for this group, it seems a reasonable default guess.

By: thylo

thylo — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 19:54:43 +0000

I could not find an exhaustive list of introduced species to New Zealand unfortunately, but searching for “marsupial cat” yielded a reference to the extant species of Dasyurids… Quolls basically. I cannot imagine why they would be introduced anywhere, though.

By: Buckeyes1

Buckeyes1 — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 19:44:29 +0000

The animal pictured in the somewhat blurry photo looks like a Thylacine to me, albeit one with a different stripe pattern. The head does not resemble drawings made from skeletons of the extinct marsupial lion which had a very strange dental arrangement as well. It does look like the head of many B&W photos of Thylacines taken when the species was still around to be photographed.

Since no white man ever saw the mainland Thylacines (they became extinct before their arrival) it’s possible they had a different pattern of stripes than those that survived into modern times on the island of Tasmania. I believe the Aborigines made rock drawings of the Tyger and they did draw them to resemble those we know from Tasmania, but mainland Australia is as large as the continental US. Just as there are Black bears and Grizzly bears they may have been regional sub species of Thylacine on such a large continent.

Interesting more wasn’t made of this mysterious photograph at the time, unless it was just assumed it was all a hoax of somesort….