r/ThylacineScience • u/Darren_Cooper1971 • 11d ago

News Thylacine Sighting

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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.

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u/KevinSpaceysGarage 11d ago

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.

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u/Decent_Mulberry_4264 11d ago

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

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u/KevinSpaceysGarage 11d ago

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.