Comments on: Thylacine In Tantanoola Tiger Terra?

By: Heather

Heather — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 06:29:47 +0000

I grew up in Casterton, western Victoria, and vividly remember travelling through a back track that came out near Lake Mundi one night. A number of strange animals crossed the road in front of the car, they were bigger than foxes and didn’t have bushy tails. I have no idea what they were, but we still discuss then over 40 years later. There could be anything in the scrub there, and there have been a lot of sightings of Thylacines on that area in my life time.

By: charlie23

charlie23 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:08:30 +0000

“Assyrian Wolf” = Canis lupus pallipes (now known as the “Iranian Wolf”, Assyria referring to the ancient empire that once encompassed much of upper Mesopotamia).
Ironically, the Iranian Wolf was once thought to be the direct ancestor of the Dingo (probably due to the similarities in it’s short coat and light color) but DNA has disproved this.

By: dogu4

dogu4 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:14:18 +0000

Interesting story, or stories, since there seem to be a number of facets to it, and discounting one doesn’t necessarily shed light on the others, such as circus animals or shipwrecked castaways of the 4 legged variety. Testing the DNA will be a good place to start regarding the taxidermy specimen. Hope you’ll keep us posted.

By: Buckeyes1

Buckeyes1 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:55:02 +0000

Ignore the bad taxidermy job; I’m much more interested in the Thylacine sighting!

I sure hope they can some day soon clone these critters.

By: flame821

flame821 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:34:54 +0000

nice alliteration in the title

I’m wondering about the more recent sighting that you posted. The man mentioned specifically the tail of the sighted creature; didn’t the thylacine have a smooth (as opposed to bushy like a fox or wolf) tail?

I know the quality of the only film of the thylacine from the zoo is pretty bad, but it seemed to me that the thylacine had short hair and smooth coat.

By: marks

marks — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:45:12 +0000

Thomas “Fos” Donovan shot the Tantanoola Tiger on August 21, 1895. The carcase was stuffed “lacquered a little around around the gums to give a savage look” and displayed in a glass showcase at the Tiger Hotel in Tantanoola.

In the 1957 a 90 year old man Alf Warman of Adelaide South Australia visited the hotel. When he saw the stuffed tiger he exclaimed “that’s my dog”.

He explained how he had come to be the owner of the beast that had terrified the district more than 60 years before.

Alf Warman was a young survey worker in the growing colony and was given by his brother a puppy, the offsping of a female European Deer Hound mated with a Blood Hound.

As the pup grew Alf found him too large and hungry to keep at his Norwood (a suburb of Adelaide) home so he was sent to relatives of Norwood’s mayor in the south east of the state to help kill wild dogs.

Reports of the “tiger” then began.

Source – Walkabout June 1968.

By: cryptidsrus

cryptidsrus — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:36:15 +0000

Good post, Loren!!!

Good “sighing,” too!!!

I agree the stuffed “tiger” could be a bad taxidermy job.

By: Loren Coleman

Loren Coleman — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:19:05 +0000

Before people get carried away, several obvious things must be mentioned:

Marsupials do not mate with placental mammals.

The reported Bengal tiger escapee apparently was not the wolf-like animal killed in 1895.

Thylacines are marsupial mammals.

Wolves, dingos, and dogs are placental mammals.

What an animal looks like as a taxidermy mount may not be a good indicator of affinities, whether a placental or a marsupial mammal.

By: Ceroill

Ceroill — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:17:00 +0000

Here’s my thought: Dingo mix and bad taxidermy job.

By: Richard888

Richard888 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:49:50 +0000

It looks remarkably similar to a Dingo.