I caught a segment of "Arther C. Clark's Mysterious World" (or something
like that) on the Discovery channel. The program reminded me of "In
Search Of..." and was not impressively informative.
Anyway, they suggested that the Tasmanian tiger (I always called it the
Tasmanian wolf) may NOT be extinct, as generally thought. They interviewed
several people who reported sightings. Interestingly, the show also
mentioned a similar "Marsupial tiger" from mainland Australia. This
creature also is not documented as extant. Drawings of the Australian
animal looked very much like the Tasmanian one, and I must wonder if these
are closely related, if not the same animal.
More curiously, my not-so-trusty Webster's dictionary has a picture of the
Tasmanian wolf _Thylacinus cynocephalus_ and relates "carnivorous marsupial
that was formerly common in Australia but is now limited to the remoter
parts of Tasmania".
Perhaps some readers from down under (should I capitalize "down under"?)
could shed some light on this?
Michael
PS. does the Tasmanian wolf not share stripes with the Quagga? :-)