What was the Thylacine?
The thylacine was a carnivorous marsupial which endured until modern times in parts of Tasmania. As of the 1980s, the thylacine is presumed to be extinct, because the last recorded specimen was observed in the 1930s. These interesting animals are often cited as an example of convergent evolution, and numerous mounted specimens can be seen on display in museums in both Europe and the Australian region. Many of these museums also have collections of skeletons and other pieces of thylacine specimens. Like other marsupials, the thylacine would not have generated a placenta to support embryos in the body as they developed. As a result, thylacines were born prematurely and forced to climb into pouches on the mother’s body to finish developing. Given that the thylacine was a carnivore, this may have been a bit inconvenient for the mother as her young grew.
