Down through the mid to late Pleistocene Epoch, Diprotodon optatum roamed Australia. Standing nearly 2 meters high at the shoulder, having a length reaching 4 meters, and looking somewhat like giant wombat, these creatures were the largest marsupials yet known. Along with every other Australian animal over 100 kilograms, D. optatum went extinct approximately 40,000 years ago as part of the Late Pleistocene megafauna extinctions. The smaller Thylacines (Thylacinus cynocephalus), on the other hand, survived – at least up until a few thousand years ago on the Australian mainland, and continued to live on Tasmania through the entire Nineteenth Century with the last one taking the species’ final bow, dying of neglect, at the Hobart Beaumaris Zoo in 1936.
In Thylacine: The History, Ecology and Loss of the Tasmanian Tiger, editors Branden Holmes and Gareth Linnard bring together seventy-eight contributors in a presentation of the evolution, biology, and ecological role played by these marsupial carnivores, as well as examining their interaction with humans and even their appearances in works of fiction. It also gives attention to the many contradictions in the historical record of these remarkable animals, to the present-day ideas about attempting to bring them back, and to the idea held by some to this day that Thylacines are not actually extinct but just extraordinarily rare.
Whether your interest is in Australasian ecology and terrestrial fauna, extinction, the history of human – non-human animal interactions, or even cryptozoölogy, Thylacine is a book well worth your further investigation for the significant light it can shine on this shadowy, perplexing, much-storied animal.
