Thylacine from Guide to the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London.

Guide to the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London Thylacine. The thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus), also called the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian Wolf, was not your everyday marsupial! It had stripes like a tiger and it was shaped like a wolf. But, like most other marsupials, it carried its young in pouches. It’s been extinct since the last known specimen died at a zoo in Tasmania in 1936. The reason it went extinct is a combination of disease and over-hunting in Tasmania. No tigers or wolves live in Australia or Tasmania, but the thylacine developed similar traits, like hunting in groups, because it had to adapt to similar environments as the wolf and tiger. This makes the thylacine a stunning example of convergent evolution. Some people today believe that they have seen a thylacine in Australia or Tasmania. However, there has not been any conclusive evidence to prove the truth of these sightings. So, if you see one, take a picture! The image is a two-page spread from the 'Guide to the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London' of 1891; the illustration shows a pair of Tylacines and the description can be found at the tip of the next page. Zoos: A Historical Perspective