Why in news?
- Tasmania’s Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE) has recently released a document detailing eight reported sightings of the Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, in the last three years.
About it:
- The Tasmanian Tiger or thylacine (a dog-headed pouched dog) was an exclusively carnivorous marsupial that is considered to be extinct according to the IUCN.
- It is a mammal of an order whose members are born incompletely developed and are typically carried and suckled in a pouch on the mother’s belly.
- Marsupials are found chiefly in Australia and New Guinea, and also in America.
- It was confined to Tasmania in recent times and disappeared from mainland Australia over 2000 years ago.
- The last known thylacine died in captivity over 80 years ago, in Tasmania’s Hobart Zoo in 1936.
- It is also known as the Tasmanian Wolf and bears some resemblance to a dog.
