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Thylacine — printable fact sheet
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Thylacine
Thylacinus cynocephalus
The thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) was a carnivorous marsupial of Tasmania, the last survivor of a family that once spread across Australia and New Guinea, and its resemblance to a dog is one of the textbook cases of convergent evolution: it evolved a dog-like skull and bod…
Did you know?
- Unlike most marsupials, both male and female Thylacines had a pouch; the male's pouch protected its external reproductive organs.
- Both male and female thylacines had a pouch; the male used his to protect the scrotum. It could open its jaws to about 80 degrees, one of the widest gapes of any mammal, yet its bite was too weak to have taken adult sheep reliably. Its dog-like shape evolved entirely independently of dogs, from a marsupial ancestor. The last one died in 1936, and the anniversary of its death is now Australia's National Threatened Species Day.
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