The thylacine died out in New Guinea and mainland Australia around 3,β3, years ago, prior to the arrival of Europeans, possibly because of the introduction of the dingo , whose earliest record dates to around the same time, but which never reached Tasmania. Prior to European settlement, around 5, remained in the wild on Tasmania.
Beginning in the nineteenth century, they were perceived as a threat to the livestock of farmers and bounty hunting was introduced.
The last known of its species died in at Hobart Zoo in Tasmania. The thylacine is widespread in popular culture and is a cultural icon in Australia. The thylacine was known as the Tasmanian tiger because of the dark transverse stripes that radiated from the top of its back, and it was called the Tasmanian wolf because it resembled a medium- to large-sized canid. Both sexes had a pouch. The females used theirs for rearing young, and the males used theirs as a protective sheath, covering the external reproductive organs.
The animal had a stiff tail and could open its jaws to an unusual extent. Recent studies and anecdotal evidence on its predatory behaviour suggest that the thylacine was a solitary ambush predator specialised in hunting small- to medium-sized prey. Accounts suggest that, in the wild, it fed on small birds and mammals. It was the only member of the genus Thylacinus and family Thylacinidae to have survived until modern times.
Its closest living relatives are the other members of Dasyuromorphia , including the Tasmanian devil , from which it is estimated to have split 42β36 million years ago. Intensive hunting on Tasmania is generally blamed for its extinction, but other contributing factors were disease, the introduction of and competition with dingoes, human encroachment into its habitat and climate change.
