Drew A Thylacine And Am Really Happy With How It Turned Out!

Mick Loates (b. 1947)

Brighton Thylacine details, an eye and a front and back foot. This thylacine taxidermy can be found at the Booth Museum, Brighton. (handy reference for artists and model makers.)

The body of Wilf Batty’s thylacine, stiff with rigor mortis, tied to a fence on the man’s farm. Mr. Batty shot the animal, believed to be a male, in May of 1930, after it had reportedly been going after his chickens. It’s commonly believed that this represents the last thylacine to be killed in the wild. The photo itself, one of just five known to exist of the individual, was uncovered and shared by the great grandson of the original photographer. [ x ]

Everytime I see this I exhale deeply XD

It's Sept 7th, which means that Benjamin gets to be dead, his favorite activity

Damn I also think of thylacines and laika a bunch. That's nuts.

some more images of the thylacine you have probably never seen before

Here are some more thylacine recolors for y'all!!

some more images of the thylacine you have probably never seen before

Here is the Smithsonian thylacine as it currently appears in the museum’s Hall of Mammals. This individual was a female that lived at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. from 1902 to 1904. She was carrying three pouch young upon her arrival, two of which survived to adulthood (a male and a female, pictured here). Thanks to this little family, the Smithsonian has an impressive collection of thylacine material, but only the mother’s mounted skin is viewable by the public.

Unfortunately, this lovely specimen is displayed behind a fabric curtain in an effort to drive home the concept of extinction. If you go around the side of the display, you can barely catch a glimpse of her rear end.

The exhibit claims that the dingo was responsible for the thylacine’s extinction on mainland Australia, which occurred about 2,000 years ago. New research suggests that the dingo was not really to blame; rather, a changing climate and overhunting by growing Aboriginal populations were the likely causes. [x]

In case you’re curious, here’s a rare “pre-curtain” photo from Flickr:

For more information about the Smithsonian thylacine and her legacy, click here.

In these pictures, the Swedish Museum of Natural History’s exquisite adult female thylacine wet specimen has been removed from her jar for a 3D scan. Dr. Justin Williams used an Artec Space Spider scanner to image this specimen in submillimeter 3D.

Dr. Williams and his team scanned thylacine specimens from a total of 18 institutions for their research project, which aimed to determine the true size of the thylacine. Their publication is titled: “Did the thylacine violate the costs of carnivory? Body mass and sexual dimorphism of an iconic Australian marsupial.” [x]