The marsupial wolf, or tilacin, is an extinct animal,which lived three thousand years ago in Australia and New Guinea. In Tasmania, the last individual disappeared from the face of the earth in 1936. It is believed that tilacin never attacked a person. Juveniles even gave in to domestication.
Description
The Tasmanian, or Marsupial Wolf is carnivorous.The animal is quite large. The body in length reached 1 meter, and the tail - 50 centimeters. The largest were males, they could grow to a total length of 2 meters.
The preserved photographs and drawings confirm that the wolf looked like a dog. This is confirmed by the surviving animal skulls.
The tail is thick at the base and thin at the end of thatgives grounds to attribute the animal to the genus marsupials. Also, the wolf had bent paws behind, due to which it seemed that the animal was jumping. There were 5 fingers on the front paws of the animal, only 4 on the hind legs. But (unlike ordinary dogs), tilacin rested on all 5 fingers, as they are located in a row.
The coat is coarse and dense, short.Color on the back with gray, brown and yellow shades. There must be transverse dark brown stripes in the amount of from 19 to 25 pieces. The color of the coat on the belly is slightly lighter than on the rest of the body. There were marks on the face around the eyes of white color. The ears of the wolf are short and erect, slightly rounded at the edges.
The amazing feature of the marsupial wolf is a verywide maw, which could open up to 120 degrees. At the time of yawning, the animal opened the mouth to 180 degrees. In the paste, tilacin had 46 teeth, while the other dogs only had 42 teeth.
The females had a bag very similar to thatwhich is the Tasmanian devil, consisting of a fold of skin and covering two pairs of nipples. The spine of the animal is not very flexible and is more similar in structure to the ridge of a kangaroo. Therefore, tilatsin beautifully became on his hind legs. Some eyewitnesses claimed that they saw that the wolf was moving on two hind legs.
Typical behavior
These wolves preferred to live on the plains, wherea lot of herbs, and in sparse forests. When the offensive of man on nature began, the wolves had to move to more humid forests. There they hid in hollows and holes, rocky caves.
The marsupial wolf was nocturnal, occasionallygetting out on a sunny day to get warm. The animal led a solitary lifestyle. In periods of hunger, wolves could gather in small flocks to make it easier to hunt.
The animal made a guttural and dull sounds that often frightened the people of Tasmania.
Diet
In Australia, the marsupial wolf fed on medium and large representatives of the vertebral world. These were echidnas, lizards and birds.
In Tasmania, when sheep were brought to the island andpoultry, the wolf began to hunt pets. The predator did not disdain those individuals that fell into the trap. The animal has never returned to uneaten prey.
Reproduction
They hatched wolves of their cubs in a specialbag fold, like a kangaroo. As a rule, two to four babies were born. They were very underdeveloped, but after 3 months they were already leaving the mother’s bag. Up to 9 months, the wolf's children no longer climbed into the fold, but lived with their mother.
Tilacin pregnancy lasted about 35 days. The animal bred all year round, but fertility is low. The period of full maturity could not be established.
In captivity, it was not possible to increase the wolf population.
How to find an animal
In some reports on a marsupial wolf,a bold theory that the animal lived on Earth as early as the continent of Gondwana. This is a super-continent that united 4 continents, and it was about 40-30 million years ago. Then tilatsin settled all these territories. But initially it appeared in the north of South America, then through modern Antarctica it came to Australia and New Guinea. Then the animal population was prosperous. In support of this theory, scientists provide evidence that animal remains have been found in Patagonia, very reminiscent of a marsupial wolf.
After South and North Americaabout 8-7 million years ago, placental fauna appeared on the continent, which displaced the marsupials from their habitat. In Antarctica came the cold, the wolves disappeared there.
The marsupial wolf was first mentioned around 1000 BC. Found cave paintings and engravings of this period with the image of the animal.
Europeans first saw the animal in Tasmaniaaround 1642, but already then the population was on the verge of extinction. Abel Tasman wrote about this, he noted that the expedition found an animal on the island, it looked like a wolf, but with claws like a tiger. In 1772, Marion-Dufren described the wolf as a “tiger cat”. Although what kind of animal researchers wrote, it is still unclear.
Officially confirmed “meeting” with an animal, the marsupial wolf was recorded only in 1792. About this meeting wrote a naturalist from France, Jacques Labillardier.
In 1805, a publication appeared in the Sydney Journal with a detailed description of the wolf, which was compiled by Van Diemen, the current governor.
Scientific description was compiled only in 1808year It was Inspector George Harris. At first the animal was attributed to the genus of American opossums. And only in 1810 the animal was assigned to the order of marsupial wolves.
Why the population disappeared
To date, you can see the marsupial wolfin the photo, drawings. It is believed that the animal disappeared on the mainland of Australia 3,000 years ago. The main reasons were illness and rivalry with the dog dingo, in which the latter survived. It is also believed that man mercilessly destroyed these wolves.
At the beginning of the XIX century, the animal was still widelyrepresented on the island of Tasmania. However, in the 30s of the same century, the mass destruction of wolves began. It happened on the background of the fact that they hunted livestock. For the head of the wolf gave great prizes. A lot of legends appeared around this creature, it was called almost the devil.
Уже к 1863 году волка можно было встретить exclusively in remote forest areas. The last point was set at the beginning of the 20th century. It is believed that then the dog plague was brought to the island along with new imported dog breeds. As a result, the marsupial wolf did not survive; in 1928, a law on the protection of this animal was passed in Tasmania. The last wolf living free was killed in 1930. The last animal in captivity died in 1936. It is believed that the wolf died due to the small genetic diversity of the species, simply degenerated.
Searches for surviving individuals
In spite of everything, many naturalists stillthey hope that the marsupial wolf, or tilacin, is preserved in the dense forests of Tasmania. The media reported that people met with an animal very similar to tilacin, but no confirmation was provided. There are no facts of catching a wolf.
In 2005, The Bulletin magazine (Australia) offered a reward of 950,000 US dollars for animal capture. But the premium is still unclaimed.
Later, in 2016 and 2017, it appearedinformation that animals were discovered that are very similar to the marsupial wolf. Even one of the road cameras recorded the image of the animal, but for obvious reasons, the place where the photo was taken was not disclosed.
The fact that the wolves have seen, often say localaborigines living in the national park. At the same time, they assure that this is not a dingo dog and not another animal, but tilatsin, which they call the "moon tiger".
Attempts to clone
In 1999, an unprecedented project began -cloning tilacin. The process involved the Austrian National Museum (Sydney). In the museum itself, the cells of the young animals were preserved in alcoholized form. Scientists even managed to remove the cells, but they were damaged, it happened in 2002.
In 2005, already announced the termination of the project. But thanks to the enormous efforts of scientists, nevertheless, it was possible to “wake up” some genes and even implanted them into a mouse embryo.
In 2009, scientists even managed to decipher the animal's mitochondrial genome by examining wolf hair. What will happen next? We will see soon.
