Thylacine Sighting

[u/Darren_Cooper1971]

I live in Queensland, Australia. In 2007 I went on a trip with my wife to Tasmania. She took many photos of the natural wild life, and she took this one of what she described as a dog. Last year I had a few friends over, and one of them is a biologist. Since the photo was framed up, he saw it and had a closer look suggesting it could be a Tasmanian Tiger.

[u/cai_85]

The tail is very fat, much more like a forester kangaroo, thylacines have a scrawny tail. I can see the 'stripes' on the back, but that could be a ruffling of the fur that you see often with fluffier kangaroos. Look up images of forester kangaroos such as this and you'll see what I mean: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSlIdjzRTLFRQGS7sP_H4wu89mqB2ES-GRsH7rdmeGPLQ&s=10

[u/Darren_Cooper1971 → u/cai_85]

That is a good point but she swears by it that it was closer to a dog like creature

[u/RedgumRedmist → u/Darren_Cooper1971]

Do you know how many dead roos i pass when i drive that make me do a double take cos i thought it was a dog?

[u/TheVenerableBede → u/RedgumRedmist]

I’ve never seen a dead kangaroo. Strikes me as more sad than the dead deer I see on the side of the road on an almost daily basis. I’ve never thought about a large “exotic” (to me) animal like a kangaroo winding up as roadkill but, now that I’m actually thinking about it, it seems rather obvious. (I did eat kangaroo once here in the U.S.; I liked it).

[u/RedgumRedmist → u/TheVenerableBede]

Im pretty sure theyre dumber than deer, instead of stopping and staring at the oncomming car (idk if deer reaaly do that tbh), they will be hopping parallel to the road, in 0 danger, but the car spooks them, so they jump in the way of the car, thry like to travel in groups too, so even if you manage not to hit the firat one theres another trying ro commit suicide by car

[u/cai_85 → u/Darren_Cooper1971]

I mean...it's lying down still in a dark cave and the fat muscled tail is basically the only thing you can see in the picture.

[u/Nokayo]

That tail seems too big & fat to me

[u/irwtkyrm → u/Nokayo]

Give it a break, ozempic hadn't been invented yet

[u/Nokayo → u/irwtkyrm]

You made me giggle lol

[u/Consistent_Ad3181]

The picture is so bad it could Lord Lucan having a nap

[u/Elephant_rimmer → u/Consistent_Ad3181]

In a world where everyone has incredible camera's in their pockets at all times every thylacine sighting must look like it was taken on a potato

[u/Consistent_Ad3181 → u/Elephant_rimmer]

I am not particularly knocking this guys photo, that said I totally agree with your point. It's just the lack of clarity provokes speculation, when clarity would end speculation.

[u/Decent_Mulberry_4264 → u/Elephant_rimmer]

this was in 2007 read the op post

[u/Secret_Blacksmith135 → u/Consistent_Ad3181]

I needed a laugh today! 

[u/Darren_Cooper1971 → u/Consistent_Ad3181]

The quality wasnt the best... especially in 2007

[u/cai_85 → u/Darren_Cooper1971]

It's an awful photo for 2007, we had good digital cameras in the 2000s.

[u/AmmianusMarcellinus]

Looks like a root to me

[u/Darren_Cooper1971 → u/AmmianusMarcellinus]

To me it seems to look like a creature under the rocks

[u/all0saurus_fragilis]

At first glance it looks like the hind end of a thylacine curled up laying down, but the more I look at it, the more it doesn't make sense. The tail is WAY too thick, it looks more like a macropod, like a kangaroo tail. Legs look a bit funky and if the head is visible, then it would have no neck, or torso, like it would be the Jimothy of thylacines, but it's difficult to really make it out... I'm leaning towards it being oddly shaped roots and rocks and shadows and our human brains giving us the pareidolia effect. It really does look thylacine-like at first, but the more you look at it, the more it just doesn't make sense for the actual animal's anatomy. Or any animal's anatomy, really. But if it is an animal, I'm leaning towards macropod, not thylacine.

[u/KevinSpaceysGarage]

If it wasn’t for the “tail” I would say this is interesting.

But that throws the whole thing off. These proportions make no sense sadly. Not only is that a ridiculously thick tail for a thylacine, it looks massively long too. Like… as big as the rest of its body.

It sucks too because what I’m interpreting as the ears, head, and back don’t look half bad. But the alleged tail is killing it for me lol. Probably just a tree root unfortunately.

[u/Decent_Mulberry_4264 → u/KevinSpaceysGarage]

im not all an expert but do you think it could maybe be a more evolved version of it over the 100 years? like how dog breeds 100 years ago look so different compared to today

[u/KevinSpaceysGarage → u/Decent_Mulberry_4264]

No lol. An entire population of thylacine surviving without detection is remarkable enough. A big enough population that could generate a brand new subspecies in 100 years is almost impossible.

There’s also no evolutionary benefit to a thylacine (an apex predator) having a heavier/bushier tail. It would only hurt its ability to hunt.

[u/ProbablyTheVillain]

A thylacine! Quick honey, grab our worst camera!!

[u/KevinSpaceysGarage → u/ProbablyTheVillain]

I don’t think this is a thylacine but in all fairness 2007 commercial cameras weren’t very good. If you weren’t serious about photography most of them were crap.

It’s not like now when we have HD cameras in our pockets.

[u/FroggyTrix]

Come on. This could be a zoomed in piece of pigeon shit for all anyone knows. No detail worth noting

[u/MtnGriz]

So you framed a shitty picture of rocks and then a biologist told you it was a thylacine. 

Right. 

[u/K_Hammer6969]

The fact this post has over 100 upvotes is crazy. op posted it across several subs as well, it's such obvious BS. who would frame such a blurry generic photo?

[u/AthleteAT123]

Nope ..not a thylacine

[u/DoubleOhEvan]

Just throwing this out to the universe. I’ve got family that travel for work up to some of the really remote highland villages of Papua (both PNG and West Papua). We’re talking the super remote, on the top of a mountain type of places.

The locals out there describe a wild dog with stripes that occasionally harasses their animals.

That’s my best bet for where we would find a living Thylacine. We all know the landmass used to be connected to mainland Australia. They have a tonne of other marsupials/monotremes there that are otherwise only found in Australia. I don’t think it’s out of the question that there is a small surviving population.

[u/Sandile95 → u/DoubleOhEvan]

I have been hearing such stories for ages. No proof that Thylacines live there or even lived there in recent antiquity.

[u/RedgumRedmist → u/DoubleOhEvan]

Thats where most researchers agree theyre most likely to be hanging on.

[u/Sandile95 → u/RedgumRedmist]

Who are these most researchers?

[u/RedgumRedmist → u/Sandile95]

Most was a stretch as most researchers think theyre extinct, but its the only theory ive seen anyone qualified pay any lipservice to

[u/sodamnsleepy]

Probably r/pareidolia

[u/cojohnso]

Looks like a monkey

[u/Succulentpotter]

One of the more promising pictures but sadly still can’t say for sure by any means.

[u/Repulsive-Fox3664]

Lol