GLEN VAUDREY: The last dive between the pages of `The Savage World`

For my final dive between the pages of The Savage World I look at one of my favourite animals and perhaps the most likely extinct animal to make a return to the known world, the thylacine.

Strangely, the author appears to have a little difficulty picking a name for it and comes up with five different ones in the same short passage.

‘The Zebra Wolf, or Dog-headed Opossum (Thylacynus cynocephalus), is not strictly an opossum, for its hind feet lack thumbs, the tail is hairy and non-prehensile, and it has too few incisor teeth in each jaw. It is called the Tasmanian wolf, the Australian tiger, the Zebra wolf, and the Australian hyena. It is carnivorous like the wolf, to which it has many resemblances. Its body slopes forward in consequence of its hind legs being longer than the fore legs; its elongated thick muzzle is almost cylindrical, its tail broad at the base tapers to a point, and it dresses itself in gray indulging, however in black stripes across its back and hind legs.

It is very destructive to flocks and is hence anything but a favorite with farmers. Its digestion is sufficiently remarkable to admit of its competing with the goat or the ostrich, since it has been known to eat the porcupine, quills and all.

The animal is nocturnal in its habits and specially particular about making its home wherever the light of day cannot penetrate. The animal has only rudimentary marsupial organs’

I will let the author off this time for not seeing the extinction of this animal coming. The last captive thylacine died on 7 September 1936 in Hobart Zoo, Tasmania. While that may be the official end, reports of sightings have carried on and I, like many others, would not be at all surprised if one or more examples appeared out of the bush in the next year or so.