A number of factors, including the introduction of the dingo, led to the extinction of the thylacine in all areas except Tasmania about 2,000 years ago. The thylacine population in Tasmania at the time of European settlement is estimated at about 5,000.
The date 7 September 1936 is widely regarded as the day when the world's last remaining Tasmanian tiger – also known as the thylacine – took its final breath in a zoo in Hobart.
While you will find just two representatives of these typically Australian mammals on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, you will search in vain for them on neighbouring Borneo. Australia, on the other hand, is not home to mammals that you will typically find in Asia, such as bears, tigers or rhinos.
The last surviving thylacines lived on Tasmania until they were hunted by European settlers in the 19th century, according to Live Science. A lack of genetic diversity may have also contributed to their demise. The last known living Tasmanian Tiger died in Tasmania at the Hobart Zoo in 1936.
The last known thylacine was given to Hobart Zoo in Tasmania in 1931, dying in captivity in 1936. European settlers, some of whom harbored mostly unwarranted fears that the animal would attack livestock, relentlessly hunted the striped, carnivorous marsupials, which resembled wolves more than felines.
All it can really say is it's very unlikely. And I would agree it's very unlikely there are any thylacines there, but you can't say they're not.”
According to the WWF, there are approximately only 4,500 tigers left in the wild. However, some estimates put the number even lower. Habitat loss is a major factor in the decline in wild tiger populations. Today, an estimated 95% of lands where tigers once lived are now gone due to human activity.
The Tasmanian Tiger is thought to have been the closest relative to the Tasmanian Devil. These creatures were very shy and avoided humans so were not dangerous to us. Their extinction was due to hunting by humans as well as competition with other small predators such as dingos.
Eventually, this systematic slaying decimated the species, and as a result, the thylacine has been presumed extinct for the last 87 years. The International Union for Conservation of Nature made it official in 1982. But proving that an animal has truly disappeared is difficult, especially in remote places in Tasmania.
While the Tasmanian tiger has vanished from the planet, it is possible it may roam the earth once again. Earlier this year, NPR reported the "de-extinction" company Colossal Biosciences announced plans to genetically resurrect the bizarre looking creature—which, despite its name, is not remotely related to a tiger.
Genus: Thylacoleo (Thylacopardus) – Australia's marsupial lions, that lived from about 2 million years ago, during the Late Pliocene Epoch and became extinct about 30,000 years ago, during the Late Pleistocene Epoch.
There are wild big cats in Australia
Large (sometimes black) feral dogs and dingoes, foxes and even wallabies explain some 'big cats' sightings, but not all of them. Australian big cats aren't just represented by eyewitness accounts and hazy photos, but by some pretty good photos, and also by a number of dead bodies.
Dingoes are Australia's only native canid and play an important role as an apex predator, keeping natural systems in balance.
There is a distinct chance that these truly magnificent cats could be extinct by as soon as 2025!
†Panthera tigris trinilensis
The oldest tiger fossils found in Early Pleistocene Java show that about two million years ago, tigers were already quite common in East Asia. However, the glacial and interglacial climatic variations and other geological events may have caused repeated geographic changes in the area.
The thylacine (/ˈθaɪləsiːn/; binomial name Thylacinus cynocephalus), also commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf, is an extinct carnivorous marsupial that was native to the Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea.
It's not possible to bring back the dodo, even if it becomes possible to build a bird with a dodo genome. Beyond behavior, the dodo proxy must survive in a world that is significantly different from that of more than 300 years ago, when the dodo went extinct.
Once considered a fanciful idea, recent advancements in technology – notably CRISPR – have made bringing back extinct animals such as mammoths an extremely feasible proposition that investors are willing to put their money into, with an aim of reversing and preventing biodiversity loss.
3 Extinct Species of Tigers
Unfortunately, you won't have the opportunity to see three extinct tiger species. These include the Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata), the Bali tiger (Pantera tigris balica) and the Javan tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica).
While the forester kangaroo is the state's biggest herbivorous marsupial, the Tasmanian devil is the biggest carnivorous marsupial not only in Tassie but the world. It can weigh up to 4-13 kg (9-29 pounds) and reach 50-78 cm (20-31 inches) long when mature.
The Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus: dog-headed pouched-dog) is a large carnivorous marsupial now believed to be extinct. It was the only member of the family Thylacinidae to survive into modern times. It is also known as the Tasmanian Tiger or Tasmanian Wolf.
Tigers can indeed change their stripes—and in the Similipal Tiger Reserve in India, many have done just that. So-called black tigers, genetic mutants that sport unusually wide and merged stripes, were extremely rare even when tigers were plentiful centuries ago. But in Similipal today, one in three are black.
Tigers are ~60-70% muscle but have lower bone density than lions. In terms of muscular strength, tigers are stronger. Lions live in Africa and India. Lions are the second largest of the five big cats in the genus panthera.
Rarest species of tiger
Sumatran tigers are the rarest species of tiger, classified as Critically Endangered, with only 500-600 individuals left in the wild.