SEPTEMBER 24, 2019
by Dr Charles Feigin, University of Melbourne
The Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, was one
of Australia's most enigmatic native species.
It was the largest marsupial predator to
survive until the arrival of Europeans but carried its babies in a pouch like a
kangaroo or koala.
Tragically, the last known thylacine died
in Hobart in 1936 after a bounty was placed on its head and after decades of
hunting by farmers.
Haunting photographs and film of the last
known thylacines and a wealth of museum specimens, reveal an uncanny animal with
its wolf head and tiger stripes.
A new study led by by Professor Andrew Pask
and myself at the University of Melbourne, published in the journal Genome
Research, has made the first headway into answering this question by comparing
the complete DNA sequences of the thylacine and wolf.
And it confirms that the resemblance
between the two isn't just skin deep.
The thylacine and placental canids such as
wolves, dogs and foxes, are perhaps the most striking example of convergent
evolution. Through this process, distantly related animals can evolve similar
forms in response to shared environmental challenges.
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