The
Tasmanian Wolf
Description
Current Status: The
Tazmanian Wolf is believed to have been extinct for the last 65 years,
although there is now a current investigation to confirm the possible existence
of the Tasmanian Wolf, do to a sighting of one by a Wildlife Service Officer
in January of 1995 in the Pyengana region of eastern Tasmania.
Name: The
Tazmanian Wolf, also known as the Tazmanian Tiger and as Thylacines which
came from their latin name Thylacinus Cynocephalus.
Physical Profile: About
5 feet long, 3 feet high when standing on all four legs, Light brown fur
with dark stripes across the lower back. Note in the picture above
how wide the jaws are open. The Tasmanian Wolf's jaws were known to open
wider than any other mammal. Despite its appearance and its popular
name, it was not in fact a species of wolf. It was actually a marsupial,
the largest carnivorous marsupial in recent times. The Tasmanian
wolf was more closely related to the kangaroo and the wombat. Hence
it's latin name thylacinus cynocephalus, "meaning pouched dog with wolf
head" yes the Tasmanian Wolf had a pouch. The Tasmanian Wolf's resemblance
to unrelated species is a result of what scientists call convergent evolution,
in which similar features develop separately in different species. The
Tasmanian Wolf evolved into a form comparable to members of the dog family
because it filled much the same ecological niche in Australia as true dogs
do in their environments.
The extinction of the Tasmanian Wolf is attributable
solely to activities of human beings. In the nineteenth century, when Tasmania
encouraged agriculture, the Tasmanian Wolf was considered a threat to livestock,
and bounty hunters were paid twenty-five cents per scalp as part of a concerted,
and successful, effort to eliminate the animal. It was soon hunted to extinction.
Today, in the hopes that the Tasmanian Wolf is not truly extinct, the Australian
Conservation Foundation offers $100 just for a sighting of the animal's
tracks.
Picture courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History
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