I've always found there to be something hauntingly beautiful about the Thylacine. The idea of this solitary hunter with a frighteningly powerful maw and an almost sad face lurking at the bottom of the world send shivers down my spine. It's my hope that one day a pocket of them are found alive out there but I know thats a pipe dream.
“Although similar in size, the thylacine skull (right) proved larger than a gray wolf skull.” This is the caption under an image in which the rightmost skull is decisively smaller than the other two. I think there’s an error. Perhaps the central skull is the one belonging to the Tasmanian tiger, not the one on the right?
> Thylacine crania are far larger than expected for their body mass, as determined by their centroid size (Fig. 3a), and exceed the absolute cranial sizes of far larger marsupials such as red kangaroos (Supplementary Fig. 5). While the thylacine weighs ~17 kgs34, its cranial size (within ±10%) is similar to that of much larger species, between 24.5 and 66.7 kg (Fig. 3a). In contrast, most placental carnivorans that are close to the thylacine in overall cranial shape (Figs. 1b and 2a) are jackals and foxes weighing 6–14 kgs (Fig. 3b). The cranial size of the thylacine is on par with much heavier predators such as the grey wolf, African wild dog (Lycaon pictus), puma (Puma concolor), and leopard (Panthera pardus).
...
> The large size of the thylacine cranium has not been integrated into interpretations of its function, possibly because morphometric analyses generally remove absolute size43,44 and biomechanical comparisons usually focus on comparative, rather than absolute, generation of bite force44. However, a large cranium counteracts the weaker structure of a long and narrow rostrum by increasing the absolute magnitude of rostral resilience to stress and bite force. This is because larger crania are more resilient to intrinsic and extrinsic loads3,44 and carry more muscle3 compared to smaller crania that share the same shape. It is also possible that the wide zygomatic arch compared to other canids, particularly in larger thylacines (Fig. 4e), plays a role in buttressing the jaw joint against the leverage of the long jaw3,45, but this remains to be tested. Overall, the large size of the thylacine cranium thus indicates a specific mechanism of prey capture and/or immobilisation optimised for fast, high-impact bites whose force was dissipated across a large volume of cranial bone.
They say it could not attack livestock, but was instead for snapping at smaller prey. I think such a creature probably could attack new born lambs and chickens. Sheep's biological programming would also mean that they would run away from a dog-like predator so that it could worry them.
The white colonists had interactions with the animals so we can assume that they actually knew what they were talking about so I think you've got a good point.
Interestingly the story of the Thylacines extinction starts a lot earlier than white settlement.
"The fossilised remains of thylacines have been found in Papua New Guinea, throughout the Australian mainland and Tasmania.
Factors including the introduction of the dingo led to the extinction of the thylacine in all areas except Tasmania about 2,000 years ago. The thylacine population in Tasmania at the time of European settlement is estimated at about 5,000."[0]
I've always found there to be something hauntingly beautiful about the Thylacine. The idea of this solitary hunter with a frighteningly powerful maw and an almost sad face lurking at the bottom of the world send shivers down my spine. It's my hope that one day a pocket of them are found alive out there but I know thats a pipe dream.
“Although similar in size, the thylacine skull (right) proved larger than a gray wolf skull.” This is the caption under an image in which the rightmost skull is decisively smaller than the other two. I think there’s an error. Perhaps the central skull is the one belonging to the Tasmanian tiger, not the one on the right?
Based on the nearby text I believe the right skull is a fox. And yeah the middle skull is then the Tasmanian tiger, with the narrow concave snout.
The original source is here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-76614-0
> Thylacine crania are far larger than expected for their body mass, as determined by their centroid size (Fig. 3a), and exceed the absolute cranial sizes of far larger marsupials such as red kangaroos (Supplementary Fig. 5). While the thylacine weighs ~17 kgs34, its cranial size (within ±10%) is similar to that of much larger species, between 24.5 and 66.7 kg (Fig. 3a). In contrast, most placental carnivorans that are close to the thylacine in overall cranial shape (Figs. 1b and 2a) are jackals and foxes weighing 6–14 kgs (Fig. 3b). The cranial size of the thylacine is on par with much heavier predators such as the grey wolf, African wild dog (Lycaon pictus), puma (Puma concolor), and leopard (Panthera pardus).
...
> The large size of the thylacine cranium has not been integrated into interpretations of its function, possibly because morphometric analyses generally remove absolute size43,44 and biomechanical comparisons usually focus on comparative, rather than absolute, generation of bite force44. However, a large cranium counteracts the weaker structure of a long and narrow rostrum by increasing the absolute magnitude of rostral resilience to stress and bite force. This is because larger crania are more resilient to intrinsic and extrinsic loads3,44 and carry more muscle3 compared to smaller crania that share the same shape. It is also possible that the wide zygomatic arch compared to other canids, particularly in larger thylacines (Fig. 4e), plays a role in buttressing the jaw joint against the leverage of the long jaw3,45, but this remains to be tested. Overall, the large size of the thylacine cranium thus indicates a specific mechanism of prey capture and/or immobilisation optimised for fast, high-impact bites whose force was dissipated across a large volume of cranial bone.
They say it could not attack livestock, but was instead for snapping at smaller prey. I think such a creature probably could attack new born lambs and chickens. Sheep's biological programming would also mean that they would run away from a dog-like predator so that it could worry them.
The white colonists had interactions with the animals so we can assume that they actually knew what they were talking about so I think you've got a good point.
Interestingly the story of the Thylacines extinction starts a lot earlier than white settlement.
"The fossilised remains of thylacines have been found in Papua New Guinea, throughout the Australian mainland and Tasmania.
Factors including the introduction of the dingo led to the extinction of the thylacine in all areas except Tasmania about 2,000 years ago. The thylacine population in Tasmania at the time of European settlement is estimated at about 5,000."[0]
0 - https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/extinction...