Remains of last Tasmanian tiger unearthed after being lost for 85 years

The missing thylacine, billed as 'one of Tasmania’s most enduring zoological mysteries,' shows the importance of proper cataloguing.

For decades, the remains of the last Tasmanian tiger to walk this Earth were believed to be lost. It turns out they were just hiding in plain sight the entire time.

The Tasmanian tiger, also known as the thylacine, played a key role in Tasmania’s ecosystem as the only marsupial apex predator of modern times. However, when European settlers arrived on the island in the 1800s, the coyote-sized critter was blamed for killing farmers’ livestock. The shy, semi-nocturnal Tasmanian tiger was hunted to extinction.

The last known thylacine recorded by humans was an old female that died in captivity in the Hobart Zoo on Sept. 7, 1936. Soon after, her remains vanished, and Australian zoologists were left to wonder what ever happened to the last Tasmanian tiger.

Eighty-five years later, two researchers have finally uncovered the answers.

Robert Paddle, a comparative psychologist from the Australian Catholic University, and Kathryn Medlock, honorary curator of vertebrate zoology at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG), dove into the museum’s archives and managed to track down the remains of the last thylacine, or endling of the species.

What was billed as “one of Tasmania’s most enduring zoological mysteries,” by a press release from TMAG was actually just a case of improper cataloguing, according to Paddle and Medlock’s research. The museum had possessed the remains the entire time, but it was using them in its education department as a specimen to show to children.

According to Paddle, the thylacine endling had been sold to the Hobart Zoo in May 1936 by a local trapper named Elias Churchill.

“The sale was not recorded or publicized by the zoo because, at the time, ground-based snaring was illegal and Churchill could have been fined,” Paddle said.