tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/tasmanian-tiger-2934/articlesTasmanian Tiger – The Conversation2023-08-01T02:23:26Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2106342023-08-01T02:23:26Z2023-08-01T02:23:26ZA 140-year-old Tassie tiger brain sample survived two world wars and made it to our lab. Here’s what we found<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540321/original/file-20230801-23-6pkxa0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1156%2C412%2C5080%2C4054&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Model of a thylacine at the Australian Museum</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sydney-australia-26th-mar-2023-model-2285454969">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Researchers often think how and when their results will be published. However, many research projects don’t see the light until decades (or even centuries) later, if at all.</p>
<p>This is the case of a high-resolution atlas of the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine brain. Carefully processed over 140 years ago, it is finally published today <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2306516120">in the journal PNAS</a>.</p>
<h2>Similar, but not wolves</h2>
<p>Thylacines were dingo-sized carnivorous marsupials that roamed through Australia and New Guinea prior to human occupation. They became confined to Tasmania around 3,000 years ago. </p>
<p>The arrival of European colonists and the introduction of farming, diseases and hunting bounties quickly led to their extinction. The last known individual died on September 7 1936 at Hobart’s Beaumaris Zoo. As a commemoration, September 7 became the <a href="https://wwf.org.au/what-we-do/species/national-threatened-species-day/">National Threatened Species Day</a> to raise conservation awareness in Australia.</p>
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<span class="caption">Thylacine family at Beaumaris Zoo in 1910.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine#/media/File:Thylacines.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-we-bring-back-the-thylacine-we-asked-5-experts-188894">Should we bring back the thylacine? We asked 5 experts</a>
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<p>Thylacines looked remarkably similar to wolves and dogs (that is, canids). This is a textbook example of a process known as evolutionary convergence: when the body shapes of animals are really similar, despite them coming from different lineages.</p>
<p>However, whether thylacine brains are also similar to wolves has been very hard to find out, due to a lack of material available for microscopic studies. In the newly published study, my colleagues and I uploaded high-resolution images to a <a href="http://www.brainmaps.org/index.php?action=viewslides&datid=170">public repository</a>, and studied brain sections prepared for microscopy from a thylacine that died in the Berlin Zoo in 1880.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540312/original/file-20230801-17-luml9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Image of a website with a series of purple brain images in a grid" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540312/original/file-20230801-17-luml9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540312/original/file-20230801-17-luml9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540312/original/file-20230801-17-luml9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540312/original/file-20230801-17-luml9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540312/original/file-20230801-17-luml9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540312/original/file-20230801-17-luml9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540312/original/file-20230801-17-luml9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A screen capture showing a selection of the thylacine brain scans the team uploaded to a public image repository.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.brainmaps.org/index.php?action=viewslides&datid=170&start=1">BrainMaps.org</a></span>
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<h2>Kept safe by researchers</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, very little information about this specimen was available (for example, its sex and body weight was missing). Details were likely lost during both world wars. But the samples were kept safe by researchers who understood their biological relevance. </p>
<p>Initial custodians likely included German scientists Oskar and Cecile Vogt, whose large privately owned brain sample collection was incorporated into the <a href="https://brain.mpg.de/81041/history">Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research</a> in 1914. Vogt – <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0361923098001245">who also studied Lenin’s brain</a> – was the founding director of the institute, prior to the couple escaping the Nazis in 1937.</p>
<p>The institute later became the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and moved to Frankfurt in 1962. There, late neurobiologist Heinz Stephan handed the thylacine material to John Nelson from Monash University (co-author of this study) in 1973, to be returned to Australia.</p>
<p>The original samples are currently held by <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/about/facilities-collections/collections/anwc">CSIRO’s Australian National Wildlife Collection</a> in Canberra.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540313/original/file-20230801-241351-d7ns4b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540313/original/file-20230801-241351-d7ns4b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540313/original/file-20230801-241351-d7ns4b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540313/original/file-20230801-241351-d7ns4b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540313/original/file-20230801-241351-d7ns4b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540313/original/file-20230801-241351-d7ns4b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540313/original/file-20230801-241351-d7ns4b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540313/original/file-20230801-241351-d7ns4b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The last known thylacine was captured in Tasmania, and kept at the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22Benjamin%22.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/extinct-but-not-gone-the-thylacine-continues-to-fascinate-us-201865">Extinct but not gone – the thylacine continues to fascinate us</a>
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<h2>Brain features reveal a family</h2>
<p>So, what did we discover after analysing the samples? Overall, the thylacine brain resembles that of its carnivorous marsupial relatives (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/dasyurid">dasyurids</a>, like dunnarts, quolls and Tasmanian devils) more than that of wolves or other canids.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540319/original/file-20230801-17-lxz8o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540319/original/file-20230801-17-lxz8o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540319/original/file-20230801-17-lxz8o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540319/original/file-20230801-17-lxz8o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540319/original/file-20230801-17-lxz8o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540319/original/file-20230801-17-lxz8o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540319/original/file-20230801-17-lxz8o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540319/original/file-20230801-17-lxz8o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Thylacines are related to other Australian carnivorous marsupials, pictured here: Tasmanian tiger, Tasmanian devil, tiger quoll, numbat, yellow-footed antiechinus, fat-tailed dunnart.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dasyuromorphia_portraits.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>The brain region known as the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for planning actions and sensing the environment, is larger than in other dasyurids. Brain regions involved in processing smells also suggest that scavenging and hunting behaviours were important in this species.</p>
<p>These findings show that despite body resemblance, brain features better show the evolutionary relatedness between species.</p>
<p>Making this material openly available allows for anyone to study the thylacine brain and gain a clearer picture of this long-gone species. <a href="https://biomedical-sciences.uq.edu.au/research/groups/brain-evolution-and-development">Our ongoing research</a> using dunnarts is also providing new insights about the development and evolution of the mammalian brain.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-tasmanian-tiger-was-hunted-to-extinction-as-a-large-predator-but-it-was-only-half-as-heavy-as-we-thought-144599">The Tasmanian tiger was hunted to extinction as a 'large predator' – but it was only half as heavy as we thought</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210634/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rodrigo Suarez receives grant funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.</span></em></p>Brain samples of a thylacine that died in 1880 in Berlin were kept safe by researchers for decades. Now, they have finally been analysed.Rodrigo Suarez, Senior Lecturer- School of Biomedical Sciences and Queensland Brain Institute, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2018652023-03-19T19:04:57Z2023-03-19T19:04:57ZExtinct but not gone – the thylacine continues to fascinate us<p>Human life on Earth is utterly dependent on biodiversity but our activities are driving an increase in extinctions. Yet some extinct species continue to hold our fascination. <a href="https://theconversation.com/weve-decoded-the-numbat-genome-and-it-could-bring-the-thylacines-resurrection-a-step-closer-176528">New methods in genetics and reproductive biology</a> hold the promise that de-extinction – resurrecting extinct species – <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/8047/#details">could soon be possible</a>. </p>
<p>But bringing back extinct species is costly. Shouldn’t our focus be on preventing further extinctions? </p>
<p>Almost 20 years ago, for instance, it was looking like impending doom for the Tasmanian devil. It’s the world’s largest surviving marsupial carnivore after the loss of the thylacine. In the words of Oscar Wilde, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0040342">to lose both looks like carelessness</a>”. </p>
<p>The enigmatic thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger, continues to capture people’s attention. The size of a wolf, it was officially declared extinct in its last stronghold in Tasmania. Lost before it was ever appreciated or studied, the thylacine is known only from anecdotes. </p>
<p>An iconic symbol of extinction for many but also a symbol of hope, the thylacine has high cultural significance. This iconic animal might still be here if the European colonisers of Tasmania had appreciated a few decades earlier just how unique the thylacine was, as the last member of the marsupial carnivore family Thylacinidae, and stopped persecuting it. </p>
<p>A new book, <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/8047/#details">Thylacine: The History, Ecology and Loss of the Tasmanian Tiger</a>, presents new evidence-based knowledge about the thylacine in <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/samples/TOC_Thylacine.pdf">78 contributions</a> (I wrote the introduction). New scientific and historical methods and large databases mean we can learn much about the ecology and history of this animal from remains it left behind – bones, DNA in skin and bones, rock art, oral histories and historical records. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-we-resurrect-the-thylacine-maybe-but-it-wont-help-the-global-extinction-crisis-178425">Can we resurrect the thylacine? Maybe, but it won't help the global extinction crisis</a>
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<h2>We can learn from extinctions to prevent more</h2>
<p>To stem the rate of extinctions we need to better understand the processes of extinction and the species we have lost. To restore species and ecosystems, we need to know the context of how loss of species and their ecological functions has already changed the natural world. </p>
<p>Preventing further extinctions and recovering threatened species need to be the priority. Even common species can slip away rapidly before we notice. </p>
<p>The Tasmanian devil was widespread and abundant before a unique <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abb9772">transmissible cancer emerged</a>, cause unknown. Within 30 years of its appearance in the mid-1990s, it spread across the devil’s island range. The population was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13703">reduced by 80%</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515950/original/file-20230316-28-5vnne5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Old black and white photo of man sitting next to a dead thylacine strung up by its hind legs" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515950/original/file-20230316-28-5vnne5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515950/original/file-20230316-28-5vnne5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515950/original/file-20230316-28-5vnne5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515950/original/file-20230316-28-5vnne5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515950/original/file-20230316-28-5vnne5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515950/original/file-20230316-28-5vnne5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515950/original/file-20230316-28-5vnne5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">European colonists’ hunting of the thylacine was not the sole cause of its extinction.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Supplied image</span></span>
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<p>The final demise of the thylacine in the early 1900s appeared rapid and is not easily explained by persecution for <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tasmanian-tiger-lesson-be-learnt/dp/0958579105">alleged sheep killing</a> or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-5347(00)89050-3">disease</a>.</p>
<p>Many of us still hold out hope the thylacine will be found again. We rarely know the exact date and time of a species extinction. And more than half of Tasmania is remote and unchanged – rugged country that would have supported low numbers of thylacines. </p>
<p>The thylacine’s former strongholds in productive parts of Tasmania are now farmed and humans have dramatically altered the landscape in other ways. People still <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.18.427214v2">report seeing thylacines</a>, but sightings are subject to psychological biases. In other words, we need a verifiable record of an actual live thylacine to confirm its existence. </p>
<p>Still, despite the compounding odds against its rediscovery, the thylacine offers hope.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tasmanian-tigers-were-going-extinct-before-we-pushed-them-over-the-edge-88947">Tasmanian tigers were going extinct before we pushed them over the edge</a>
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<h2>To restore ecosystems, we need to understand what’s lost</h2>
<p>To conserve species and restore ecosystems effectively we have to understand historical context. </p>
<p>The thylacine was an apex predator, at the top of the food chain, albeit one that hunted smaller prey relative to its size. This meant it competed for prey with smaller carnivores. Thylacines may have shaped the behaviour and reduced the abundance of devils and quolls and their prey, wallabies and pademelons. This competition thus affected how the devil and quolls <a href="https://doi.org/10.1890/0012-9658(1997)078%5B2569:CDIADC%5D2.0.CO;2">evolved</a> in terms of prey size and the size of their canine teeth. </p>
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<img alt="A Tasmanian devil with its jaws wide open, snarling" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515991/original/file-20230317-2270-h1n8e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515991/original/file-20230317-2270-h1n8e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515991/original/file-20230317-2270-h1n8e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515991/original/file-20230317-2270-h1n8e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515991/original/file-20230317-2270-h1n8e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515991/original/file-20230317-2270-h1n8e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515991/original/file-20230317-2270-h1n8e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Tasmanian devil evolved alongside the thylacine and for a while looked like following it into extinction.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Wedge-tailed eagles are probably the <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/8047/#details">closest analogue now to the thylacine</a>. </p>
<p>Losing one species can have cascading effects on the loss of others. The significance of the co-extinction of the <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/8047/#details">single known host-specific parasite</a> of the thylacine is unknown. However, the important role of parasites in ecosystems is generally under-appreciated.</p>
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<p>
<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-tasmanian-tiger-was-hunted-to-extinction-as-a-large-predator-but-it-was-only-half-as-heavy-as-we-thought-144599">The Tasmanian tiger was hunted to extinction as a 'large predator' – but it was only half as heavy as we thought</a>
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<h2>The thylacine lives on in culture</h2>
<p>Thylacines were part of the <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/8047/#details">place-based cosmologies of Aboriginal peoples</a>. Aboriginal peoples hold long <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/8047/#details">intergenerational knowledge of thylacines</a>, even 3,000 years after their extinction on mainland Australia. </p>
<p>In some places, this knowledge is associated with rock art depictions, which may be regarded as being made by ancestral beings. Oral or written <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/8047/#details">stories are important</a> in maintaining a connection to the animal and for <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/8047/#details">reimagining the future</a>. They nourish the hope of seeing the animal again and imagining a connection to its legacy. </p>
<p>In Tasmania, there are constant reminders of the thylacine, which features on logos and the Tasmanian coat of arms.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-we-bring-back-the-thylacine-we-asked-5-experts-188894">Should we bring back the thylacine? We asked 5 experts</a>
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<h2>We still dare to hope for its return</h2>
<p>The thylacine might be gone but, in our enthusiasm for seeking knowledge of its ecology, there is still hope it will turn up once again. </p>
<p>The thylacine played an important role in Tasmanian ecosystems and on the Australian mainland. Understanding this role and the factors leading to its extinction provides important context for saving other species and for restoring ecosystems.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201865/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Menna Elizabeth Jones wrote the introduction to the book discussed in the article, Thylacine: The History, Ecology and Loss of the Tasmanian Tiger.</span></em></p>Australia still feels the thylacine’s presence in its landscape, wildlife and culture. A new book explores everything we know about the thylacine and the hope of a return.Menna Elizabeth Jones, Associate Professor in Zoology, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1888942022-08-17T06:38:56Z2022-08-17T06:38:56ZShould we bring back the thylacine? We asked 5 experts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479572/original/file-20220817-1775-wtiwro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C92%2C1160%2C729&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a newly announced partnership with Texas biotech company <a href="https://colossal.com/thylacine/">Colossal Biosciences</a>, Australian researchers are hoping their dream to bring back the extinct thylacine is a “<a href="https://www.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/news/2022/august/lab-takes-giant-leap-toward-thylacine-de-extinction-with-colossal-genetic-engineering-technology-partnership2">giant leap</a>” closer to fruition.</p>
<p>Scientists at University of Melbourne’s TIGRR Lab (Thylacine Integrated Genetic Restoration Research) believe the new partnership, which brings Colossal’s expertise in CRISPR gene editing on board, could result in the first baby thylacine within a decade.</p>
<p>The genetic engineering firm made headlines in 2021 with the announcement of an ambitious plan to bring back <a href="https://theconversation.com/bringing-woolly-mammoths-back-from-extinction-might-not-be-such-a-bad-idea-ethicists-explain-167892">something akin to the woolly mammoth</a>, by producing elephant-mammoth hybrids or “mammophants”.</p>
<p>But de-extinction, as this type of research is known, is a highly controversial field. It’s often criticised for attempts at “playing God” or drawing attention away from the conservation of living species. So, should we bring back the thylacine? We asked five experts.</p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-728" class="tc-infographic" height="400px" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/728/61b1466b03511bf4e6f8e5e4f6c6aa363a67a45e/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
A new biotech partnership could bring the first baby thylacine to life within 10 years. But de-extinction is controversial – should we even be doing this?Signe Dean, Science + Technology Editor, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1593432021-04-22T04:30:39Z2021-04-22T04:30:39ZLike a jackal in wolf’s clothing: the Tasmanian tiger was no wolfish predator — it hunted small prey<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396409/original/file-20210421-17-sohn8m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=81%2C0%2C1441%2C773&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The thylacine (<em>Thylacinus cynocephalus</em>), commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger, is an Aussie icon. It was the largest historical marsupial predator and a powerful example of human-caused extinction. And despite being extinct <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/extinction-of-thylacine">since 1936</a>, it still gets featured in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/science/thylacines-tasmanian-tigers-sightings.html">popular media</a>.</p>
<p>Yet much is still unknown about the thylacine, as its extinction left us with almost no direct observational data. Several mysteries remain regarding its specific ecology, including the question of how wolf-like it was. </p>
<p>In a new study published in <a href="https://bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12862-021-01788-8">BMC Ecology & Evolution</a>, my colleagues and I tackle this question. We show the thylacine was indeed similar to canids, a family which includes dogs, wolves and foxes. </p>
<p>But more specifically, it was similar to those canids which evolved to hunt small animals — as opposed to the wolf (<em>Canis lupus</em>) or wild dog/dingo (<em>Canis lupus dingo</em>), which are large-prey specialists. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-tasmanian-tiger-was-hunted-to-extinction-as-a-large-predator-but-it-was-only-half-as-heavy-as-we-thought-144599">The Tasmanian tiger was hunted to extinction as a 'large predator' – but it was only half as heavy as we thought</a>
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<h2>Moulded by our environments</h2>
<p>When European colonisers first saw the thylacine, they noted its wolf-like appearance and judged it based on that assumption: like the wolf, it would pose a threat to their livestock.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395987/original/file-20210420-17-4hmty5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395987/original/file-20210420-17-4hmty5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395987/original/file-20210420-17-4hmty5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395987/original/file-20210420-17-4hmty5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395987/original/file-20210420-17-4hmty5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395987/original/file-20210420-17-4hmty5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395987/original/file-20210420-17-4hmty5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395987/original/file-20210420-17-4hmty5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The thylacine and its canid comparatives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thylacine photo by E.J.K. Baker and colourised by D.S. Rovinsky; wolf photo by Neil Herbert; dingo photo by Jarrod Amoore.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This superficially wolf-like appearance has been taken to mean the thylacine is a textbook example of convergent evolution: where two unrelated animals evolve similar traits in response to similar pressures. The similarities are so striking it’s even sometimes called the “marsupial wolf”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Swordfish, extinct dolphin and ichthyosaur." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395989/original/file-20210420-23-6oajrw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395989/original/file-20210420-23-6oajrw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395989/original/file-20210420-23-6oajrw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395989/original/file-20210420-23-6oajrw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395989/original/file-20210420-23-6oajrw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395989/original/file-20210420-23-6oajrw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395989/original/file-20210420-23-6oajrw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Although <em>Eurhinosaurus</em> (bottom) is a reptile and <em>Eurhinodelphis</em> (middle) is a mammal, both are strikingly convergent with the modern swordfish. Thus, we can infer a great deal about their ecology.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">D.S. Rovinsky</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Studying convergent evolution is a promising way for scientists to infer the behaviour and ecology of extinct animals that can’t be directly observed. Ecology is the study of how species interact with their physical surroundings. So, if an extinct animal shares a similar shape with one living today, we can assume they probably filled a similar ecological niche.</p>
<p>Since the thylacine’s ecology is uncertain, comparisons with comparable species are one of the only ways to understand it. And it’s wolf-like appearance at face value has led to the thylacine and its ecology being assumed similar to that of the grey wolf and its closest relatives, such as the dingo.</p>
<p>But what if that was wrong?</p>
<h2>Getting into the right headspace</h2>
<p>We decided to put this assumption of ecological similarity to the test. To do so we needed a wide range of ecologically meaningful animals to compare with the thylacine. After all, even though the thylacine was a marsupial (like a koala) it’s fair to say it wasn’t hanging out in trees munching on eucalyptus! </p>
<p>Using hand-held 3D scanners, we scanned hundreds of skulls from 56 different species of carnivorous mammals, with specimens obtained from more than a dozen museums around the world. This enabled us to build a skull “shapespace” to then see where the thylacine would fit among the others.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395990/original/file-20210420-15-4p63dz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Evolutionary tree of comparative species" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395990/original/file-20210420-15-4p63dz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395990/original/file-20210420-15-4p63dz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395990/original/file-20210420-15-4p63dz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395990/original/file-20210420-15-4p63dz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395990/original/file-20210420-15-4p63dz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395990/original/file-20210420-15-4p63dz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395990/original/file-20210420-15-4p63dz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A broad selection of ecologically-meaningful species, shown on this wheel-shaped evolutionary tree, were selected to compare to the thylacine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">D.S. Rovinsky</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We looked for evidence of convergent evolution by observing which of the other carnivorous mammals’ skulls were shaped most like the thylacine’s. </p>
<h2>A case of mistaken identity</h2>
<p>It turns out the skull shape of the thylacine is significantly convergent with that of some canids, but not with the usual suspects. We found no meaningful level of convergence with either the grey wolf or the dingo, and only a small degree with the red fox. </p>
<p>What we did find, however, was strong support for convergent evolution between the skulls of the thylacine and another rag-tag group of canids: African jackals and South American “foxes” (which aren’t actually foxes). Ecologically, these canids are vastly different from the wolf and dingo. Also, unlike the wolf, they specialise in hunting small prey.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395994/original/file-20210420-15-934ote.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Skulls showing difference between wolf, thylacine and small prey-hunting dogs" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395994/original/file-20210420-15-934ote.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395994/original/file-20210420-15-934ote.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395994/original/file-20210420-15-934ote.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395994/original/file-20210420-15-934ote.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395994/original/file-20210420-15-934ote.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395994/original/file-20210420-15-934ote.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395994/original/file-20210420-15-934ote.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The wolf skull on the left is more different (shown by colour) to the thylacine skull than the skull in the middle, which is the average skull shape of the significantly convergent canids. White areas are more similar to the thylacine skull, while blue and red respectively show constriction or expansion. The difference is especially strong in the facial area, where the biting happens!</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">D.S. Rovinsky</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This brings us back to one of the more powerful uses of studying convergent evolution: the ability to infer the ecology of an extinct animal. Since the thylacine’s skull shape was more similar to that of the African jackals and South American “foxes” than the wolf, it likely shared a similar ecological niche with the former.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395995/original/file-20210420-23-uee4be.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Group of delicate-faced dogs, looking like the thylacine." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395995/original/file-20210420-23-uee4be.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395995/original/file-20210420-23-uee4be.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395995/original/file-20210420-23-uee4be.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395995/original/file-20210420-23-uee4be.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395995/original/file-20210420-23-uee4be.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395995/original/file-20210420-23-uee4be.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395995/original/file-20210420-23-uee4be.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The canids most like the thylacine are all small-prey hunters with relatively delicate faces — not robust big-biters like the wolf or dingo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">D.S. Rovinsky</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Therefore, the thylacine probably also <a href="https://theconversation.com/thylacine-misrepresented-no-jaws-for-alarm-3181">preferred hunting relatively small prey</a> such as pademelons, bettongs, bandicoots and young wallabies.</p>
<p>Interestingly, however, one of the most striking findings was that the thylacine did not actually overlap with any of the other predators, canid or otherwise. While it was <em>similar</em> to some canids, it was not identical. This highlights that even our more precise analysis may paint the thylacine with too broad a brush.</p>
<h2>Judged by appearance</h2>
<p>The thylacine was hunted to extinction for its wolf-like appearance. This reaction, like most based on first glance, was devastatingly wrong. Although the thylacine turns out to not be very wolf-like, it’s still a wonderful example of convergent evolution. </p>
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<p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-did-the-tasmanian-tiger-go-extinct-11324">Why did the Tasmanian tiger go extinct?</a>
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<p>Then again, it truly was different enough from other carnivorous mammals that we still can’t say we precisely understand its ecological niche. When we lost the thylacine, we lost something truly unique for its time. </p>
<p>Our understanding of the thylacine is, even now, that of a faded and blurry snapshot. Perhaps, with more research in the coming years, we can make it a little more clear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159343/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alistair Evans receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University, and is an Honorary Research Affiliate with Museums Victoria.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin W. Adams receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University, and is an Honorary Research Affiliate with Museums Victoria.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglass S Rovinsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Tasmanian tiger’s superficial appearance was so similar to a wolf’s that European colonisers assumed it was a threat and hunted it to extinction.Douglass S Rovinsky, Associate research scientist, Monash UniversityAlistair Evans, Associate Professor, Monash UniversityJustin W. Adams, Senior Lecturer, Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1445992020-08-19T00:40:22Z2020-08-19T00:40:22ZThe Tasmanian tiger was hunted to extinction as a ‘large predator’ – but it was only half as heavy as we thought<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353507/original/file-20200818-25017-1l43sz1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C728%2C486&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Smithsonian Institution/colourised by D.S. Rovinsky</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Until it was hunted to extinction, the thylacine – also known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf – was the world’s largest marsupial predator. However, our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.1537">new research</a> shows it was in fact only about half as large as previously thought. So perhaps it wasn’t such a big bad wolf after all.</p>
<p>Although the thylacine is widely known as an example of human-caused extinction, there is a lot we still don’t know about this fascinating animal. This even includes one of the most basic details: how much did the thylacine weigh?</p>
<p>An animal’s body mass is one of the most fundamental aspects of its biology. It affects nearly every facet of its biology, from biochemical and metabolic processes, reproduction, growth, and development, through to where the animal can live and how it moves.</p>
<p>For meat-eating predators, body mass also determines what the animal eats – or more specifically, how much it has to eat at each meal.</p>
<p>Catching and eating other animals is hard work, so a predator has to weigh the costs carefully against the benefits. Small predators have low hunting costs – moving around, hunting, and killing small prey doesn’t cost much energy, so they can afford to nibble on small animals here and there. But for bigger predators, the stakes are higher.</p>
<p>Almost all large predators – those weighing at least 21 kilograms – <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0050022">focus their efforts</a> on prey at least half their own body size, getting more bang for the buck. In contrast, small predators below 14.5 kg almost always catch prey much smaller than half their own size. Those in between typically take prey less than half their size, but sometimes switch to a larger meal if some easy prey is there for the taking – or if the predator is getting desperate.</p>
<h2>The mismeasure of the thylacine</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353508/original/file-20200818-16-1l770as.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Scan of article from Launceston Examiner" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353508/original/file-20200818-16-1l770as.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353508/original/file-20200818-16-1l770as.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353508/original/file-20200818-16-1l770as.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353508/original/file-20200818-16-1l770as.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353508/original/file-20200818-16-1l770as.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353508/original/file-20200818-16-1l770as.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353508/original/file-20200818-16-1l770as.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The March 14, 1868 edition of the Launceston Examiner featured tales of a ‘hyena’ that managed to kill 25 sheep.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">trove.nla.gov.au</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Few accurately recorded weights exist for thylacines – only four, in fact. This lack of information has made estimating their average size difficult. The most commonly used average body mass is 29.5kg, based on 19th-century newspaper accounts. </p>
<p>This suggests the thylacine would probably have taken relatively large prey such as wallabies, kangaroos and perhaps sheep. However, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-did-the-tasmanian-tiger-go-extinct-11324">studies of thylacine skulls</a> suggest they didn’t have strong enough skulls to capture and kill large prey, and that they would have hunted smaller animals instead. </p>
<p>This presented a problem: if the thylacine was as big as we thought, it shouldn’t be able to live solely on small prey. But what if we’ve had the weight wrong the whole time? </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-did-the-tasmanian-tiger-go-extinct-11324">Why did the Tasmanian tiger go extinct?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Weighing an extinct animal</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Man taking a scan of a stuffed thylacine" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353509/original/file-20200818-24815-woqe2b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353509/original/file-20200818-24815-woqe2b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353509/original/file-20200818-24815-woqe2b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353509/original/file-20200818-24815-woqe2b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353509/original/file-20200818-24815-woqe2b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353509/original/file-20200818-24815-woqe2b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353509/original/file-20200818-24815-woqe2b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ben Myers of Thinglab scans a Museums Victoria thylacine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CREDIT</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our new research, <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.1537">published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B</a>, addresses this weighty issue. Our team travelled throughout the world to museums in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, and 3D-scanned 93 thylacines, including whole mounted skeletons, taxidermy mounts, and the only whole-body ethanol-preserved thylacine in the world, in Sweden. </p>
<p>Based on these scans, we created new equations to estimate a thylacine’s mass, <a href="https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7007-10-60">based on how thick their limbs were</a> – because their legs would have had to support their entire weight.</p>
<p>We also compared the results of these equations with a new method of digitally weighing 3D specimens. Based on a 3D scan of a mounted skeleton, we digitally “filled in the spaces” to estimate how much soft tissue would have been present, and then used our new formula to calculate how much this would weigh. Taxidermy mounts were easier as there was no need to infer the amount of soft tissue. The most <a href="https://www.artstation.com/damirgmartin">artistic member of our team</a> digitally sculpted <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08912963.2019.1631819?journalCode=ghbi20">lifelike</a> thylacines around the scanned skeletons, and we weighed them, too. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353505/original/file-20200818-25336-1juy7u9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353505/original/file-20200818-25336-1juy7u9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353505/original/file-20200818-25336-1juy7u9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353505/original/file-20200818-25336-1juy7u9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353505/original/file-20200818-25336-1juy7u9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353505/original/file-20200818-25336-1juy7u9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353505/original/file-20200818-25336-1juy7u9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353505/original/file-20200818-25336-1juy7u9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Building and weighing a thylacine. Scanned skeletons (lop left) were surrounded by digital ‘convex hulls’ (top right), which then had their volume and mass calculated. The skeletons were then used in digitally sculpting lifelife models (bottom left), each with their own unique stripes (bottom right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rovinsky et al.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our calculations unanimously told a very different story from the 19th-century periodicals, and from the commonly used estimate. The average thylacine weighed only about 16.7 kg – not 29.5 kg.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-on-the-trail-of-the-london-thylacines-91473">Friday essay: on the trail of the London thylacines</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Tall tales on the tiger trail</h2>
<p>This means the previous estimate, based on taking 19th-century periodicals at face value, was nearly 80% too large. Looking back at those old newspaper reports, many of them in retrospect have the hallmarks of “tall tales”, told to make a captured thylacine seem bigger, more impressive and more dangerous.</p>
<p>It was based on this suspected danger that the thylacine was hunted and trapped to extinction, with private bounties already placed on them by 1840, and government-sponsored extermination by the 1880s.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353511/original/file-20200818-14-1vwkovd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graphic showing the size of thylacines relative to a woman" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353511/original/file-20200818-14-1vwkovd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353511/original/file-20200818-14-1vwkovd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353511/original/file-20200818-14-1vwkovd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353511/original/file-20200818-14-1vwkovd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353511/original/file-20200818-14-1vwkovd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353511/original/file-20200818-14-1vwkovd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353511/original/file-20200818-14-1vwkovd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thylacines were much smaller in stature than humans or grey wolves.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rovinsky et al.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The thylacine was much smaller than previously thought, and this aligns with the smaller prey size suggested by the earlier studies. Predators below 21 kg – in which we should now include the thylacine – all tend to hunt prey smaller than half their size. The “Tasmanian wolf” probably wasn’t such a danger to Tasmanian farmers’ sheep after all. </p>
<p>By rewriting this fundamental aspect of their biology, we are closer to understanding the role of the thylacine in the ecosystem – and to seeing exactly what was lost when we deliberately hunted it to extinction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144599/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglass Rovinsky receives funding from the Robert Blackwood Partnership Monash-Museums Victoria Scholarship, and Monash University Department of Anatomy & Developmental Biology. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alistair Evans receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University, and is an Honorary Research Affiliate with Museums Victoria. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin W. Adams receives funding from Monash University.</span></em></p>The “Tasmanian tiger” was hunted to extinction based on its perceived size as a predator big enough to take sheep. But it seems this was just a tall tale, and the thylacine weighed just 16.7kg.Douglass S Rovinsky, PhD Candidate, Monash UniversityAlistair Evans, Associate Professor, Monash UniversityJustin W. Adams, Senior Lecturer, Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1276112019-12-01T19:01:13Z2019-12-01T19:01:13ZScientists re-counted Australia’s extinct species, and the result is devastating<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304190/original/file-20191128-176593-zls58b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3189%2C2305&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Tasmanian tiger is among the best known of our extinct species, but researchers have now revealed the extent of the crisis.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">TASMANIAN MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s well established that unsustainable human activity is <a href="https://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/all_publications/living_planet_report_2018/">damaging the health of the planet</a>. The way we use Earth threatens our future and that of many animals and plants. <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-mass-extinction-and-are-we-in-one-now-122535">Species extinction</a> is an inevitable end point.</p>
<p>It’s important that the loss of Australian nature be quantified accurately. To date, putting an exact figure on the number of extinct species has been challenging. But in the most comprehensive assessment of its kind, our <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000632071930895X">research</a> has confirmed that 100 endemic Australian species living in 1788 are now validly listed as <a href="http://www.nespthreatenedspecies.edu.au/news/a-review-of-listed-extinctions-in-australia">extinct</a>.</p>
<p>Alarmingly, this tally confirms that the number of extinct Australian species is much higher than previously thought.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304196/original/file-20191128-176634-19adcyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304196/original/file-20191128-176634-19adcyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304196/original/file-20191128-176634-19adcyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304196/original/file-20191128-176634-19adcyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304196/original/file-20191128-176634-19adcyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304196/original/file-20191128-176634-19adcyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304196/original/file-20191128-176634-19adcyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A southern black-throated finch, which conservationists say is threatened by the Adani coal mine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ERIC VANDERDUYS/BirdLife Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The most precise tally yet</h2>
<p>Counts of extinct Australian species vary. The federal government’s list of extinct <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicthreatenedlist.pl?wanted=flora">plants</a> and <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicthreatenedlist.pl?wanted=fauna">animals</a> totals 92. However 20 of these are subspecies, five are now known to still exist in Australia and seven survive overseas – reducing the figure to 60.</p>
<p>An RMIT/ABC fact check <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-19/fact-check-does-australia-have-one-of-the-highest-extinction/6691026">puts the figure</a> at 46. </p>
<p>The states and territories also hold their own extinction lists, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature keeps a global database, the <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org">Red List</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304199/original/file-20191128-176593-16pript.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304199/original/file-20191128-176593-16pript.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304199/original/file-20191128-176593-16pript.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304199/original/file-20191128-176593-16pript.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304199/original/file-20191128-176593-16pript.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304199/original/file-20191128-176593-16pript.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304199/original/file-20191128-176593-16pript.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An endangered Manning River turtle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AUSTRALIAN REPTILE PARK</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000632071930895X">research</a> collated these separate listings. We excluded species that still exist overseas, such as the <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=24168">water tassel-fern</a>. We also excluded some species that, happily, have been rediscovered since being listed as <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-13/seed-bank-holds-the-forgotten-conservation/10610418">extinct</a>, or which are no longer recognised as valid species (such as the obscure snail <em><a href="https://bie.ala.org.au/search?sortField=&dir=desc&q=Fluvidona+dulvertonensis">Fluvidona dulvertonensis</a></em>).</p>
<p>We concluded that exactly 100 plant and animal species are validly listed as having become extinct in the 230 years since Europeans colonised Australia:</p>
<ul>
<li>38 plants, such as the <a href="https://bie.ala.org.au/species/http://id.biodiversity.org.au/name/apni/91897">magnificent spider-orchid</a></li>
<li>1 seaweed species</li>
<li>34 mammals including the <a href="https://australianmuseum.net.au/learn/australia-over-time/extinct-animals/the-thylacine/">thylacine</a> and pig-footed bandicoot</li>
<li>10 invertebrates including a funnel-web spider, beetles and snails</li>
<li>9 birds, such as the <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=723">paradise parrot</a></li>
<li>4 frogs, including two species of the bizarre <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2013/03/15/resurrecting-the-extinct-frog-with-a-stomach-for-a-womb/">gastric-brooding frog</a> which used its stomach as a womb</li>
<li>3 reptiles including the Christmas Island forest skink</li>
<li>1 fish, the Pedder galaxias.</li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304214/original/file-20191128-178114-w7mod2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304214/original/file-20191128-178114-w7mod2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304214/original/file-20191128-178114-w7mod2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304214/original/file-20191128-178114-w7mod2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304214/original/file-20191128-178114-w7mod2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304214/original/file-20191128-178114-w7mod2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304214/original/file-20191128-178114-w7mod2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 19th century illustration of the Pig-footed bandicoot.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our tally includes three species listed as extinct in the wild, with two of these still existing in captivity.</p>
<p>The mammal toll represents 10% of the species present in 1788. This loss rate is far higher than for any other continent over this period.</p>
<p>The 100 extinctions are drawn from formal lists. But many extinctions have not been officially registered. Other species disappeared before their existence was recorded. More have not been seen for decades, and are suspected lost by scientists or Indigenous groups who <a href="https://theconversation.com/eulogy-for-a-seastar-australias-first-recorded-marine-extinction-103225">knew them best</a>. We speculate that the actual tally of extinct Australian species since 1788 is likely to be about ten times greater than we derived from official lists.</p>
<p>And biodiversity loss is more than extinctions alone. Many more Australian species have disappeared from all but a vestige of their former ranges, or persist in populations far smaller than in the past.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303097/original/file-20191122-74593-1qdj0uz.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303097/original/file-20191122-74593-1qdj0uz.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303097/original/file-20191122-74593-1qdj0uz.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303097/original/file-20191122-74593-1qdj0uz.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303097/original/file-20191122-74593-1qdj0uz.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=666&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303097/original/file-20191122-74593-1qdj0uz.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=666&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303097/original/file-20191122-74593-1qdj0uz.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=666&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The geographical spread of extinctions across Australia. Darker shading represents a higher extinction tally.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Dating the losses</h2>
<p>Dating of extinctions is not straightforward. For a few Australian species, such as the Christmas Island forest skink, we know the <a href="https://theconversation.com/vale-gump-the-last-known-christmas-island-forest-skink-30252">day the last known individual died</a>. But many species disappeared without us realising at the time. </p>
<p>Our estimation of extinction dates reveals a largely continuous rate of loss – averaging about four species per decade. </p>
<p>Continuing this trend, in the past decade, <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cobi.12852">three Australian species have become extinct</a> – the Christmas Island forest skink, Christmas Island pipistrelle and Bramble Cay melomys – and two others became extinct in the wild. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303096/original/file-20191122-74584-f59vt8.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303096/original/file-20191122-74584-f59vt8.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303096/original/file-20191122-74584-f59vt8.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303096/original/file-20191122-74584-f59vt8.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303096/original/file-20191122-74584-f59vt8.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303096/original/file-20191122-74584-f59vt8.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303096/original/file-20191122-74584-f59vt8.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cumulative tally of Australian extinctions since 1788.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The extinctions occurred over most of the continent. However 21 occurred only on islands smaller than Tasmania, which comprise less than 0.5% of Australia’s land mass. </p>
<p>This trend, repeated around the world, is largely due to small population sizes and vulnerability to newly introduced predators.</p>
<h2>We must learn from the past</h2>
<p>The 100 recognised extinctions followed the loss of Indigenous land management, its replacement with entirely new land uses and new settlers introducing species with little regard to detrimental impacts. </p>
<p>Introduced cats and foxes are implicated in most mammal extinctions; vegetation clearing and habitat degradation caused most plant extinctions. Disease caused the loss of frogs and the accidental introduction of an Asian snake caused the recent loss of three reptile species on Christmas Island. </p>
<p>The causes have changed over time. Hunting contributed to several early extinctions, but not recent ones. In the last decade, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/534437a">climate change</a> contributed to the extinction of the Bramble Cay melomys, which lived only on one Queensland island.</p>
<p>The prospects for some species are helped by legal protection, Australia’s fine national reserve system and threat management. But these gains are subverted by the legacy of previous habitat loss and fragmentation, and the ongoing damage caused by introduced species.</p>
<p>Our own population increase is causing further habitat loss, and new threats such as climate change bring more frequent and intense droughts and bushfires. </p>
<p>Environment laws have demonstrably <a href="https://theconversation.com/environment-laws-have-failed-to-tackle-the-extinction-emergency-heres-the-proof-122936">failed to stem the extinction crisis</a>. The national laws are now under review, and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-nature-laws-are-being-overhauled-here-are-7-things-we-must-fix-126021">federal government has indicated</a> protections may be wound back. </p>
<p>But now is not the time to <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/epbc/about/review">weaken</a> environment laws further. The creation of modern Australia has come at a great cost to nature – we are not living well in this land.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The study on which this article is based was also co-authored by Andrew Burbidge, David Coates, Rod Fensham and Norm McKenzie.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127611/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Woinarski receives funding from the Australian government's Threatened Species Recovery Hub of the National Environmental Science Program</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brett Murphy receives funding from the Australian Government's Threatened Species Recovery Hub of the National Environmental Science Program and the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dale Nimmo receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Hermon Slade Foundation, and The Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Legge receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program's Threatened Species Recovery Hub.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Garnett receives funding from the Australian government's Threatened Species Recovery Hub of the National Environmental Science Program. He also coordinates BirdLife Australia's Threatened Species Committee </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael F. Braby does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research has revealed 100 plant and animal species have become extinct in the past two centuries – a far higher number than previously thought.John Woinarski, Professor (conservation biology), Charles Darwin UniversityBrett Murphy, Associate Professor / ARC Future Fellow, Charles Darwin UniversityDale Nimmo, Associate professor/ARC DECRA fellow, Charles Sturt UniversityMichael F. Braby, Associate Professor, Australian National UniversitySarah Legge, Professor, Australian National UniversityStephen Garnett, Professor of Conservation and Sustainable Livelihoods, Charles Darwin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1042482018-10-10T18:42:01Z2018-10-10T18:42:01ZA fresh perspective on Tasmania, a terrible and beautiful place<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239609/original/file-20181008-72110-1yyz2k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This pin cushion made from the jawbone of a thylacine won second prize in the handicraft section of the Glamorgan Show in 1900.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Book Review: Island Story: Tasmania in Object and Text.</em></p>
<p>The island of Tasmania lies suspended beneath Australia like a heart-shaped pendant of sapphire, emerald and tourmaline. Here is where the world runs out, crumbling into the vast expanse of the Southern Ocean.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/island-story-tasmania-in-object-and-text">Island Story: Tasmania in Object and Text</a> offers us a fresh perspective on this terrible and beautiful place. Editors Ralph Crane and Danielle Wood invite the reader to discover Tasmania anew with their inspired juxtaposition of objects from the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery with texts as diverse as the objects. The pictures are arresting, the textual extracts are perfectly chosen and the design by Imogen Stubbs is gorgeous. Don’t be misled, this is no bland coffee table book.</p>
<p>As benefits such an ancient place, Island Story opens with the specimen of a hairy-legged cicada, an endemic species so ancient it was resident in the supercontinent of Pangea. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-journey-through-the-apocalypse-85829">Friday essay: journey through the apocalypse</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>What follows is Thomas Bock’s 1837 portrait of Woureddy, cleverman and warrior of the original people of Tasmania, whose unbroken occupation of the island lasted 40,000 years until colonial invasion brought it to a dreadful end within the short span of Woureddy’s life.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239245/original/file-20181004-52684-znpedo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239245/original/file-20181004-52684-znpedo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239245/original/file-20181004-52684-znpedo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=821&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239245/original/file-20181004-52684-znpedo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=821&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239245/original/file-20181004-52684-znpedo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=821&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239245/original/file-20181004-52684-znpedo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1032&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239245/original/file-20181004-52684-znpedo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1032&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239245/original/file-20181004-52684-znpedo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1032&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Bock, Woureddy, Native of Bruny Island, Van Diemen’s Land.
Watercolour, 1837</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Paired with the portrait is the befuddled interpretation of Woureddy’s narrative of the beginning of the world by George Augustus Robinson, the self-proclaimed evangelical missionary primarily responsible for the removal of all the original owners of the land to distant Flinders Island in the Bass Strait.</p>
<p>Robinson’s grand achievement in “conciliating” the original people of Tasmania was celebrated in an 1840 painting by Benjamin Duterrau, reproduced with a paired text by Greg Lehmann that puts in words an implicit theme of Island Story that “the spectre of genocide must be confronted and its consequences owned”.</p>
<h2>Connections</h2>
<p>The organising principle for the book is “the human desire to see, make and enjoy connections between seemingly disparate things”. A travelling case from the 1920s belonging to the silent move actress Louise Lovely, paired with an extract from Marie Bjelke Petersen’s novel Jewelled Nights that became a movie in 1925 starring Ms Lovely, seems unexceptional, but turn the page and there is a news photograph of arrests at the gay law reform protests in 1988. </p>
<p>The apparent disparity is resolved with the paired biographic extract by the gay rights activist Rodney Croome recalling his bizarre quest to shake the hand of the abhorrent Sir Joh Bjelke Peterson, favourite nephew of Marie, because his was the last hand to touch this writer Croome so admired.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/churning-the-mud-tasmanias-fertile-ground-for-legal-and-social-reform-12180">Churning the mud: Tasmania's fertile ground for legal and social reform</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In my desire to see and make connections I found the dominant trope of this book to be captivity: entirely apposite for a place that began its modern history as prison. Among the more mundane objects is a saw from the infamous prison at Macquarie Harbour paired with historian Hamish Maxwell Stewart’s account of the extreme misery that drove so many fatal escape attempts.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239624/original/file-20181008-72127-yypzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239624/original/file-20181008-72127-yypzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239624/original/file-20181008-72127-yypzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239624/original/file-20181008-72127-yypzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239624/original/file-20181008-72127-yypzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239624/original/file-20181008-72127-yypzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239624/original/file-20181008-72127-yypzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239624/original/file-20181008-72127-yypzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Douglas’s saw, c. 1830s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most chilling is the simple cambric and cotton hood with narrow eye slit for prisoners in the dreadful separate prison at Port Arthur. They had to pull it over their heads whenever they left their cell.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239614/original/file-20181008-72121-1nmil58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239614/original/file-20181008-72121-1nmil58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239614/original/file-20181008-72121-1nmil58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239614/original/file-20181008-72121-1nmil58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239614/original/file-20181008-72121-1nmil58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239614/original/file-20181008-72121-1nmil58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239614/original/file-20181008-72121-1nmil58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239614/original/file-20181008-72121-1nmil58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Convict Cowl, c. 1850.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the paired extract from a travelogue by Anthony Trollope, a man who endured 40 years of frightful punishment at Port Arthur after being transported for mutiny, a boy tells Trollope: “I have tried to escape – always to escape – as a bird does out of a cage”. </p>
<p>A delicate watercolour of three young Hobart ladies by the gentleman painter and convicted forger Thomas Wainwright is paired with his 1844 petition begging he be released from “vice in her most revolting and sordid phase” that constituted his seven years in captivity.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239246/original/file-20181004-52669-193rfp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239246/original/file-20181004-52669-193rfp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239246/original/file-20181004-52669-193rfp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239246/original/file-20181004-52669-193rfp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239246/original/file-20181004-52669-193rfp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239246/original/file-20181004-52669-193rfp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239246/original/file-20181004-52669-193rfp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239246/original/file-20181004-52669-193rfp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Bock, Mathinna, Watercolour, 1842.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The painter Thomas Bock also spent years as a convict. In addition to his portrait of Woureddy, the book reproduces his exquisite 1842 portrait of Mathinna, the young girl taken from captivity at Wybalenna on Flinders Island and sent to live at government house as a sort of household pet. </p>
<p>A recent photograph of the chapel at Wybalenna is paired with the 1846 petition to Queen Victoria from several young men protesting their unjust treatment at Wybalenna. </p>
<p>One year after the petition, four dozen survivors were transferred to another place of captivity at a disused convict station at Oyster Cove south of Hobart. All of those taken to Oyster Cove died, except for Fanny who had married an ex-convict named William Smith and went to live on land she was granted in the Huon Valley. She is represented here in the wax cylinders that captured her singing in her own language in 1899.</p>
<p>As one might expect, the extinct Tasmanian Tiger has several outings in this book: as a skeleton, a skin carriage rug and an exquisite jawbone pincushion that won second prize in the handicraft section of the Glamorgan Show in 1900. There is no still from the famous film of the last thylacine in his iron cage, but there is a poignant poem by Cliff Forshaw about the creature’s desolate pacing. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239623/original/file-20181008-133328-qq6bvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239623/original/file-20181008-133328-qq6bvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239623/original/file-20181008-133328-qq6bvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239623/original/file-20181008-133328-qq6bvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239623/original/file-20181008-133328-qq6bvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239623/original/file-20181008-133328-qq6bvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239623/original/file-20181008-133328-qq6bvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239623/original/file-20181008-133328-qq6bvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thylacine Skin Buggy Rug, c. 1903, photographed by Robert David Stephenson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-on-the-trail-of-the-london-thylacines-91473">Friday essay: on the trail of the London thylacines</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There are numerous other images from the Zoology section: a specimen drawer of impaled butterflies, stuffed wattlebirds imprisoned in a glass cabinet and a wombat taken from the wild around 1796 and kept in a cage at Government house in Sydney then preserved in spirits and sent to England where the taxidermist mistakenly set the animal standing upright. </p>
<p>Then there is John Burns, the fighting lion born in captivity in the Sydney Zoo and for many years displayed in a huge cage in a circus to be tamed by Captain Humphries and his whip. </p>
<p>Known for his morose moods and fits of rage, John Burns would thrill the audience with his fierce fight for supremacy over Humphries. His body was sent to the taxidermist and displayed in the museum diorama as a tableau with a lioness and two cubs in 1901.</p>
<p>The fighting lion was long gone by my childhood. What I remember of the diorama, which remained until quite recently, was a tableau of an Aboriginal warrior with his wife and two children sitting around a fire. This tableau was made of resin, you understand.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104248/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cassandra Pybus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new book connects disparate objects and texts to tell the story of Tasmania. It is an inspired enterprise.Cassandra Pybus, Adjunct Professor in History, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/889472017-12-11T19:13:38Z2017-12-11T19:13:38ZTasmanian tigers were going extinct before we pushed them over the edge<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198462/original/file-20171211-27686-lrmoci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gone since 1936, and ailing since long before that.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s no doubt that humans killed off the <a href="https://australianmuseum.net.au/the-thylacine">Tasmanian tiger</a>. But a new genetic analysis suggests this species had been on the decline for millennia before humans arrived to drive them to extinction.</p>
<p>The Tasmanian tiger, also known as the thylacine, was unique. It was the largest marsupial predator that survived into recent times. Sadly it was hunted to extinction in the wild, and the last known Tasmanian tiger died in captivity in 1936.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/s41559-017-0417-y">paper published in Nature Ecology and Evolution today</a>, my colleagues and I piece together its entire genetic sequence for the first time. It tells us that thylacines’ genetic health had been declining for many millennia before they first encountered human hunters.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-we-hunt-dingoes-to-the-brink-like-the-tasmanian-tiger-19982">Will we hunt dingoes to the brink like the Tasmanian tiger?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198466/original/file-20171211-27693-1jgss5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198466/original/file-20171211-27693-1jgss5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198466/original/file-20171211-27693-1jgss5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198466/original/file-20171211-27693-1jgss5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198466/original/file-20171211-27693-1jgss5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198466/original/file-20171211-27693-1jgss5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198466/original/file-20171211-27693-1jgss5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198466/original/file-20171211-27693-1jgss5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hounded by hunters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our research also offered the chance to study the origins of the similarity in body shape between the thylacine and dogs. The two are almost identical, despite having last shared a common ancestor more than 160 million years ago – a remarkable example of so-called “convergent evolution”. </p>
<p>Decoding the thylacine genome allowed us to ask the question: if two animals develop an identical body shape, do they also show identical changes in their DNA?</p>
<h2>Thylacine secrets</h2>
<p>These questions were previously difficult to answer. The age and storage conditions of existing specimens meant that most thylacine specimens have DNA that is highly fragmented into very short segments, which are not suitable for piecing together the entire genome.</p>
<p>We identified a 109-year-old specimen of a young pouch thylacine in the Museums Victoria collection, which had much more intact DNA than other specimens. This gave us enough pieces to put together the entire jigsaw of its genetic makeup.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198463/original/file-20171211-27708-kte384.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198463/original/file-20171211-27708-kte384.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198463/original/file-20171211-27708-kte384.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198463/original/file-20171211-27708-kte384.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198463/original/file-20171211-27708-kte384.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198463/original/file-20171211-27708-kte384.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198463/original/file-20171211-27708-kte384.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198463/original/file-20171211-27708-kte384.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The preserved young, thylacine with enough DNA to reveal its whole genome.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museums Victoria</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Next, we made a detailed comparison of thylacines and dogs to see just how similar they really are. We used digital imaging to compare the thylacine’s skull shape to many other mammals, and found that the thylacine was indeed very similar to various types of dog (especially the wolf and red fox), and quite different from its closest living marsupial relatives such as the numbat, Tasmanian devil, and kangaroos. </p>
<p>Our results confirmed that thylacines and dogs really are the best example of convergent evolution between two distantly related mammal species ever described.</p>
<p>We next asked whether this similarity in body form is reflected by similarity in the genes. To do this, we compared the DNA sequences of thylacine genes with those of dogs and other animals too. </p>
<p>While we found many similarities between thylacines’ and dogs’ genes, they were not significantly more similar than the same genes from other animals with different body shapes, such as Tasmanian devils and cows.</p>
<p>We therefore concluded that whatever the reason why thylacines and dogs’ skulls are so similarly shaped, it is not because evolution is driving their gene sequences to be the same. </p>
<h2>Family ties</h2>
<p>The thylacine genome also allowed us to deduce its precise position in the marsupial family tree, which has been a controversial topic.</p>
<p>Our analyses showed that the thylacine was at the root of a group called the Dasyuromorphia, which also includes the <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=294">numbat</a> and <a href="http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/?base=387">Tasmanian devil</a>. </p>
<p>By examining the amount of diversity present in the single thylacine genome, we were able to estimate its effective population size during past millennia. This demographic analysis revealed extremely low genetic diversity, suggesting that if we hadn’t hunted them into extinction the population would be in very poor genetic health, just like today’s Tasmanian devils.</p>
<p>The less diversity you have in your genome, the more susceptible you are to disease, which might be why devils have contracted the facial tumour virus, and certainly why it has been so easily spread. The thylacine would have been at a similar risk of contracting devastating diseases.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198465/original/file-20171211-27698-1sg40zd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198465/original/file-20171211-27698-1sg40zd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198465/original/file-20171211-27698-1sg40zd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198465/original/file-20171211-27698-1sg40zd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198465/original/file-20171211-27698-1sg40zd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198465/original/file-20171211-27698-1sg40zd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198465/original/file-20171211-27698-1sg40zd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198465/original/file-20171211-27698-1sg40zd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The last thylacine alive.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This loss in population diversity was previously thought to have occurred as a population of thylacines (and devils) became isolated on Tasmania some 15,000 years ago, when the land bridge closed between it and the mainland. </p>
<p>But our analysis suggests that the process actually began much earlier – between 70,000 and 120,000 years ago. This suggests that both the devil and thylacine populations already had very poor genetic health long before the land bridge closed.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-curiosity-can-save-species-from-extinction-52006">How curiosity can save species from extinction</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Now that we know the whole genome of the Tasmanian tiger, we know much more about this extinct animal and the unique place it held in Australia’s marsupial family tree. We are expanding our analyses of the genome to determine how it came to look so similar to the dog, and to continue to learn more about the genetics of this unique marsupial apex predator.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88947/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Pask receives funding from Australian Research Council (ARC), National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), The University of Melbourne. </span></em></p>The new Tasmanian tiger genome reveals some fascinating facts about this extinct marsupial, including why they were so similar to dogs, and how they were growing more vulnerable to genetic disease.Andrew Pask, Associate Professor, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/756952017-04-23T20:02:17Z2017-04-23T20:02:17ZBigfoot, the Kraken and night parrots: searching for the mythical or mysterious<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166229/original/file-20170421-12655-110r77u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In 2012 scientists succeeded in filming for the first time ever a giant squid in its natural habitat.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/NHK/NEP/DISCOVERY CHANNEL/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s remarkable how little we know about Earth. How many species do we share this planet with? We don’t know, but estimates vary from <a href="http://www.livescience.com/54660-1-trillion-species-on-earth.html">millions to a trillion</a>. In some respects we know more about the Moon, Mars and Venus than we do about the ocean’s depths and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/just-how-little-do-we-know-about-the-ocean-floor-32751">vast sea floors</a>. </p>
<p>But humans are inquisitive creatures, and we’re driven to explore. Chasing mythical or mysterious animals grabs media headlines and <a href="https://theconversation.com/cryptozoology-no-need-for-an-apology-12332">spurs debates</a>, but it can also lead to remarkable discoveries. </p>
<p>The recent photographing of a live <a href="https://theconversation.com/still-here-night-parrot-rediscovery-in-wa-raises-questions-for-mining-75384">night parrot</a> in Western Australia brought much joy. These enigmatic nocturnal birds have been only sporadically sighted over decades.</p>
<p>Another Australian species that inspires dedicated searchers is the Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine. A <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-24/tasmanian-tiger-sightings-spark-scientific-study/8383884">new hunt</a> is under way, not in Tasmania but in Queensland’s vast wilderness region of Cape York. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166236/original/file-20170421-12655-1gh7pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166236/original/file-20170421-12655-1gh7pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166236/original/file-20170421-12655-1gh7pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166236/original/file-20170421-12655-1gh7pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166236/original/file-20170421-12655-1gh7pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166236/original/file-20170421-12655-1gh7pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166236/original/file-20170421-12655-1gh7pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166236/original/file-20170421-12655-1gh7pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This is the first photograph of a live night parrot, taken in Western Australia in March 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bruce Greatwitch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other plans are afoot to search for the <a href="http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2017/04/researchers-to-search-for-ancient-%E2%80%98extinct%E2%80%99-echidna?adbsc=social_20170404_71301076&adbid=10154476450238339&adbpl=fb&adbpr=100614418338">long-beaked echidna</a> in Western Australia’s Kimberley region. </p>
<p>In the case of the thylacine, <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/182690697?selectedversion=NBD51749461">old accounts</a> from the region that sound very much like descriptions of the species raise the prospect that perhaps Cape York isn’t such a bad place to look after all. </p>
<p>But in reality, and tragically, it’s very unlikely that either of these species still survives in Australia. For some species there is <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13421/epdf">scientific research</a> that estimates just how improbable such an event would be; in the case of thylacines, one model suggests the odds are <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2128077-odds-that-tasmanian-tigers-are-still-alive-are-1-in-1-6-trillion/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&cmpid=SOC%7CNSNS%7C2017-Echobox&utm_source=Twitter#link_time=1492680136">1 in 1.6 trillion</a>. </p>
<h2>Chasing myths</h2>
<p>The study and pursuit of “hidden” animals, thought to be extinct or fictitious, is often called cryptozoology. The word itself invites scorn – notorious examples include the search for Bigfoot, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Ness_Monster">Loch Ness Monster</a> or Victoria’s legendary <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/big-cat-hunt-declared-over-by-victorian-government-due-to-lack-of-evidence/news-story/0886b66e8c33f80036a5716634dad456?sv=daff6daf5f09e0747b704e9c5ef430e7">black panthers</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/v77ijOO8oAk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The search for Bigfoot is an extreme case of cryptozoology.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Granted, it’s probably apt to describe those searches as <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-bigger-the-bigfoot-claim-the-bigger-the-need-for-evidence-12245">wild goose chases</a>, but we must also acknowledge that genuine species – often quite sizeable ones – have been discovered.</p>
<p><a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/shuker-encyclopaedia-of-new-and-rediscovered-animals/">Remarkable discoveries</a> of animals thought to be fantasies or long extinct include <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/edith_widder_how_we_found_the_giant_squid">giant squid</a>, <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/m/mountain-gorilla/">mountain gorillas</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okapi">okapi</a>, <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/k/komodo-dragon/">Komodo dragons</a> and <a href="http://animals.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/fish/coelacanth/">coelacanths</a>. </p>
<p>In some cases, like the giant squid, these animals have been dismissed as legends. The <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/pictures-oarfish-philippines/">reclusive oarfish</a>, for example, are thought to be the inspiration for centuries of stories about sea serpents. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166233/original/file-20170421-12633-f2gpiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166233/original/file-20170421-12633-f2gpiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166233/original/file-20170421-12633-f2gpiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166233/original/file-20170421-12633-f2gpiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166233/original/file-20170421-12633-f2gpiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166233/original/file-20170421-12633-f2gpiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166233/original/file-20170421-12633-f2gpiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166233/original/file-20170421-12633-f2gpiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Oarfish can grow up to 8 metres long and swim vertically through the water. Commonly inhabiting the deep ocean, they occasionally come to shallow water for unknown reasons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/ Coastal Otago District Office</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Technology to the rescue</h2>
<p>Finding rare and cryptic species is self-evidently challenging, but rapid advances in technology open up amazing possibilities. Camera traps now provide us with regular selfies of once highly elusive snow leopards, and could equally be used with other difficult-to-find animals. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/onNahCXzONc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Candid camera, snow leopards in the Himalayas.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/fishing-for-dna-free-floating-edna-identifies-presence-and-abundance-of-ocean-life-75957">Environmental DNA</a> is allowing us to detect species otherwise difficult to observe. Animal DNA found in the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201300060/abstract">blood of leeches</a> has uncovered <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2012/04/does-the-tasmanian-tiger-exist-is-the-saola-extinct-ask-the-leeches/">rare and endangered mammals</a>, meaning these and other much maligned blood-sucking parasites could be powerful biodiversity survey tools.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-conservation-scientists-are-listening-to-nature-73397">Acoustic recording devices</a> can be left in areas for extended time periods, allowing us to eavesdrop on ecosystems and look out for sounds that might indicate otherwise hidden biological treasures. And coupling drones with thermal sensors and high resolution cameras means we can now take an eagle eye to remote and challenging environments. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FIrgjCNcDBI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Drones are opening up amazing possibilities for biological survey and wildlife conservation.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The benefits of exploration and lessons learned</h2>
<p>It’s easy to criticise the pursuit of the unlikely, but “miracles” can and do occur, sometimes on our doorstep. The discovery of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-the-old-things-are-australias-most-ancient-trees-65893">ancient Wollemi pine</a> is a case in point. Even if we don’t find what we’re after, we may still benefit from what we learn along the way. </p>
<p>I’ve often wondered how many more species might be revealed to us if scientists invested more time in carefully listening to, recording and following up on the knowledge of Indigenous, farming, and other communities who have long and intimate associations with the land and sea. </p>
<p>Such an approach, combined with the deployment of new technologies, could create a boom of biological discovery.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75695/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Euan Ritchie receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Euan Ritchie is a Director (Media Working Group) of the Ecological Society of Australia, and a member of the Australian Mammal Society.</span></em></p>Searching for animals thought to be extinct – or fictional – is difficult, painstaking and often disappointing. But new technology like drones offer hope of a boom in biological discovery.Euan Ritchie, Senior Lecturer in Ecology, Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/520062015-12-29T20:49:09Z2015-12-29T20:49:09ZHow curiosity can save species from extinction<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105899/original/image-20151214-23189-68rdm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Curiosity saved the butterfly.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelizardwizard/7187053091/in/photolist-bX6wut-9HY1jN-7CatEA-9L8ye7-8tpBAS-p7sCDA-6wpPjf-6wGKQ9-6wpPjj-6FDJWf-5HeYp2-5Dx6ML-7mDxN9-8cM3jT-jjmaH-s7g1FW-eGy6j8-igvx9-fqLTiB-j1Aq5A-ebKMbv-92mtfo-5eBbLH-o22cyF-4DWnfh-5SHesX-7uLerh-dZ85YB-e2sFWX-tgWyjh-gwuN3G-amVJdN-fcdo2J-6mgXTg-97WDqi-oKr4px-BdNrnH-xBFxKN-56gF91-rmvn3k-p2LKm3-9HrhUu-5gjdpe-4bUDaZ-8a8MuX-cJvnPS-9YsFNV-7MdZkB-oQ2rkr-ri1c5J">Paul Ritchie/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If I had been given one wish as a child I, it would have been that the <a href="http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/tasmanian-tiger">Tasmanian tiger</a> wasn’t extinct. To me extinction was a tragedy. I expect that many people feel the same way.</p>
<p>But it is not easy to save dwindling populations and prevent extinctions. Sure it takes money, but it also takes knowledge. One simple story about butterflies illustrates the complexity of ecosystems and shows how important research and understanding are to preserving biodiversity. </p>
<p>It is the story of the European butterfly, the <a href="http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/12659/0">large blue or Phengaris arion</a> (<em>Maculinea arion</em> in older literature). </p>
<p>In Australia we have lots of butterflies and literally countless moths; the total number is not known. In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, virtually all species have been described. </p>
<p>I visited England several times as a child, and at one stage I sought to see as many of the 60 different species of butterfly as possible. But I was particularly keen to see the large blue because it was rare. It was the first butterfly recorded in the British Isles in 1795 and was much prized by collectors for the very simple reason that it was so scarce.</p>
<p>But over the years the known populations gradually died out and it was given protected status. Britons made efforts to fence off reserves where it remained but, oddly, its numbers continued to decline. By 1979 it was declared extinct in Britain.</p>
<p>But why had all the steps to save this iconic species failed?</p>
<p>One researcher from Oxford University, <a href="http://www.zoo.ox.ac.uk/people/view/thomas_j.htm">Jeremy Thomas</a>, led a team of large blue experts to investigate the ecosystem in which it existed. The first step was to try to understand the butterfly. And there was a lot to understand.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105692/original/image-20151214-1656-1681uhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105692/original/image-20151214-1656-1681uhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105692/original/image-20151214-1656-1681uhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105692/original/image-20151214-1656-1681uhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105692/original/image-20151214-1656-1681uhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105692/original/image-20151214-1656-1681uhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105692/original/image-20151214-1656-1681uhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105692/original/image-20151214-1656-1681uhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A pretty butterfly that hides a remarkable life cycle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">PJC&Co</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Interdependence</h2>
<p>It is a remarkable species. The female lays eggs on wild thyme flower buds. Each caterpillar bores into the bud and eats the growing seeds. It needs all the energy in the seeds to survive, and if more than one caterpillar is sharing the bud they will fight things out in a cannibalistic bout until only one remains. This is a taste of things to come.</p>
<p>After about a week eating the seeds and flower it drops to the ground and waits until it is found by a special species of ant. It excretes a substance that feeds the ant, but also influences the ant’s behaviour. The ant goes and fetches fellow ants that carry the caterpillar down into the nest.</p>
<p>Once inside the nest the caterpillar does a remarkable thing: it feeds on ant larvae until it finally pupates. When it is ready to emerge as a vulnerable new butterfly it begins making sounds that appear to appease the ants. It then emerges, protected by a guard of ants, and climbs up out of the nest to stretch out its wings.</p>
<p>The critical point is that the large blue doesn’t just depend on any old species of ant, but on very particular species. It has evolved to exude chemicals that influence red ants of the species <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrmica_sabuleti"><em>Myrmica sabuleti</em></a> or <em>M. scabrinodis</em>.</p>
<p>These ants also have very specific requirements, this time in terms of temperature and moisture. If the ground is too hot or too cold they don’t thrive and other species take over.</p>
<p>Ground temperature and moisture depend on the height of the grass. The grass needs to be short, so grazing is important. It turns out that fencing off reserves actually interfered with the life cycle of the butterfly because the grass grew too long, and the ground wasn’t right for the ants.</p>
<p>Similarly, the spread of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myxomatosis">myxomatosis</a> and reductions in the rabbit populations also meant the grass grew too tall, again altering ground temperature and helping drive the decline in large blue populations.</p>
<p>Due to the <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/325/5936/80.abstract">careful work</a> by Jeremy Thomas and colleagues, all this is now known. Fortunately, unlike the Tasmanian tiger, the large blue was extinct only in the British Isles, and not in mainland Europe, thus it has been possible to re-introduce it into Britain.</p>
<p>It has also been possible to manage the habitat to allow grazing so that the ant colonies thrive and the butterfly also seems to be doing well.</p>
<p>Parts of the odd life cycle of this butterfly were known as far back as 1915, but there was no understanding of the connection to the ecosystem and landscape, so the vital step of controlling the grazing was not considered.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6Q-SC2VjHuo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The large blue has been successfully returned to Collard Hill in the Polden Hills in Somerset.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Curiosity</h2>
<p>The story shows how things can be complex and inter-connected, and that only by understanding all the facets can one intercede to put things right. It also illustrates how the careful application of science can make a difference.</p>
<p>One can never tell when and how, or even if, new knowledge will ever be useful. Scientists collect knowledge partly because they want to improve the world, but often just out of curiosity.</p>
<p>Sometimes curiosity driven research is criticised as self-indulgent, and unlikely to make a real difference to our circumstances. Sometimes it is said that researchers should just go straight for the biggest problems and tackle them straight on, or that research should be aimed purely at applications. This is increasingly heard these days given the new emphasis on <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/innovation-statement">innovation and the commercialisation of research</a>.</p>
<p>But in reality we need science most when we have tried tackling the problem and got stuck. Everything people had tried to preserve the large blue had failed. Only knowledge provided a way forward.</p>
<p>Curiosity driven science often provides solutions when we are stuck and without it we will sometimes remain stuck forever. In the case of the Tasmanian tiger I believe we are stuck forever, but there are many other things to preserve and careful in depth science can make a difference.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52006/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Merlin Crossley works for the University of New South Wales and receives funding from the Australian Research Council and National Health and Medical Research Council. He is on the Trust of the Australian Museum, the Council of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory Australia, and a Board Member of the Australian Science Media Centre and UNSW Innovations.</span></em></p>Sometimes pure curiosity driven research can yield wondrous knowledge and practical benefits, as was the case with the large blue butterfly.Merlin Crossley, Dean of Science and Professor of Molecular Biology, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/428182015-06-08T20:08:22Z2015-06-08T20:08:22ZBefore we build Jurassic World we need to study recent extinctions<p>It’s hard to have a conversation about bringing extinct creatures back to life without a tip-of-the-hat to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107290/">Jurassic Park</a>, or the latest instalment, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369610/">Jurassic World</a>, due out Thursday. Massive people-eaters escaping their bonds and ravaging humanity may make good cinema but the arguments both for and against de-extinction are more subtle and wide ranging.</p>
<p>De-extinction is based on the concept that extinction need not be forever. One way to save those animals and plants that we thought were already lost is via genomic techniques, which can link molecular biology and conservation.</p>
<p>The image of dinosaurs walking the modern-day Earth may be enough to turn some people on or off the idea immediately. But for a myriad of reasons, these great beasts of the long distant past aren’t among the immediate candidates for de-extinction.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o8ZIxVxxYAQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Instead, creatures such as the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-25052233">Pyrenean Ibex</a>, the <a href="http://www.wired.com/2013/03/passenger-pigeon-de-extinction/">Passenger Pigeon</a> and our own <a href="http://www.examiner.com.au/story/1381582/thylacine-can-return-from-dead/">Tasmanian Tiger</a> – all animals that have gone extinct in living memory – are in the sights of scientists around the world as part of the <a href="http://longnow.org/">The Long Now Foundation</a>.</p>
<p>Professor Mike Archer of the University of New South Wales is a member of this foundation, and in a 2013 <a href="https://youtu.be/y2xxZ9RKEzM">TEDx DeExtinction talk</a> he said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] if it’s clear that we [humanity] exterminated these species then I think we not only have a moral obligation to see what we could do about it, but I think we’ve got a moral imperative to try to do something, if we can.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Not yet extinct, but close</h2>
<p>In addition to the prospect of returning the recent dead, the technologies developed for de-extinction may also come to the rescue of currently living (extant) but endangered animals.</p>
<p>For those close to the edge of extinction, one of the major problems hindering conservation is a lack of genetic diversity within surviving populations. Oliver Ryder, director of genetics at the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation and Research, said that <a href="http://blogs.sandiegozoo.org/2015/02/26/strategy-to-save-northern-white-rhino-is-launched-new-genetic-technologies-offer-hope-for-species/">cryo-preserved tissues</a> may be used to improve the genetic variability and reproductive vigour of the critically endangered Northern White Rhino.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84064/original/image-20150605-14138-1919zau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84064/original/image-20150605-14138-1919zau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84064/original/image-20150605-14138-1919zau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84064/original/image-20150605-14138-1919zau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84064/original/image-20150605-14138-1919zau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84064/original/image-20150605-14138-1919zau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84064/original/image-20150605-14138-1919zau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84064/original/image-20150605-14138-1919zau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Facing extinction: one of the last remaining Northern White Rhinos.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/djmccrady/3278825295/in/photostream/">Flickr/Don McCrady</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With many of our charismatic extant creatures sharing the same crisis, the development of these tools could be a blessing.</p>
<p>Growing interest and support for de-extinction would be particularly beneficial to natural history museums collections. The bones, soft tissue samples and skins collected from distinct populations of species could provide a diverse databank of DNA for de-extinction programs.</p>
<p>But de-extinction is a field that is controversial in the public eye, and at times, among scientific peers. David Burney, Professor of Conservation Paleobiology at Hawaii’s National Tropical Botanical Garden, <a href="http://longnow.org/revive/1stde-extinction/">has said</a> that if de-extinction is technically possible, then it’s inevitable, so it might as well be embraced. That view is not an argument with unanimous support.</p>
<p>The most common arguments against de-extinction hail from conservationists themselves. De-extinction is an expensive process and the concern is that the limited resources allocated to the conservation of living organisms may be diverted to pay for de-extinction research.</p>
<p>While the cost of gene sequencing and the molecular techniques have been decreasing rapidly, these are not the only costs in implementing de-extinction. Re-introducing and managing small populations of animals, managing captive breeding and providing suitable habitat will be expensive. So too will be closely monitoring populations, protecting them from the causes of their initial extinction and studying the effect of re-introduced species.</p>
<p>So, if evenly pitted against its currently employed counterparts for conservation management, how will de-extinction fare and how will we predict the potential effectiveness of a novel method?</p>
<p>One likely analogue is “rewilding”, the process of replacing extinct species with ecological analogues from other environments, for example, re-introducing Tasmanian Devils onto the Australian mainland.</p>
<p>Previous attempts have been met with controversy. The question of conserving species compared with preserving ecosystem functionality is one that perhaps deserves more considered public debate than it has received.</p>
<p>Perhaps returning the missing species, even if it went extinct long before living memory, would face the same critique. Not everyone is in favour of wild animals in their backyard, whether back from extinction or not.</p>
<h2>Back from the dead but not the right home</h2>
<p>But what of the other side of the coin? What if we resurrect species that belonged in ecosystems that no longer exist?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pleistocenepark.ru/en/">Pleistocene Park</a>, in northern Siberia, is an experiment to show that over-hunting by humans caused both the animals – including mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, bison, horses, musk oxen, elk, saiga and yaks – and their Pleistocene habitats to vanish from the region.</p>
<p>Through grazing experiments, scientists are attempting to restore the ecosystem to what it was more than 10,000 years ago. But the missing density of herbivorous animals (such as the extinct mammoths) is said to be choking the tundra with moss.</p>
<p>If human alteration of the environment has been the main cause of extinctions over the last 1,000 years, how are we going to give it back? And which creatures that have adapted to the new landscape will we sacrifice to do so?</p>
<p>Given there have been successions of changing landscapes, each with its own biota, which one will we reinstate? If we were not able to protect these environments and the creatures that inhabited them in the past, why do we think we could do it now?</p>
<p>If we bring them back before we have halted our current rate of extinction, will we simply be dooming them to a second extinction event, a title currently only held by the Pyrenean Ibex?</p>
<p>Archer, a keen supporter of de-extinction, raised this point in his TEDx talk in relation to the Tasmanian Tiger:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>So, could we put it back? Yes. Is that all we would do? And this is an interesting question. Sometimes, you might be able to put it back, but is that the safest way to make sure it never goes extinct again? And I don’t think so.</p>
<p>I think gradually, as we see species all around the world, it’s kind of a mantra, that wildlife is increasingly not safe in the wild – we’d love to think it is, but we know it isn’t – we need other parallel strategies coming online.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Among all the questions, one thing seems clear: the application of de-extinction will need to be considered carefully on a case-by-case basis, with both forethought and public support.</p>
<p>For now the argument that de-extinction will be a boost to the resources of the conservation movement in the long term, rather than a drain on its already limited funds, is based on a mix of genuine hope and economic speculation.</p>
<p>It isn’t yet known if funding will follow excitement, or if the public will support the return of real past ecosystems.</p>
<p>Unlike some, we don’t believe that technical possibility necessitates inevitability, and so it is time to give some serious thought to de-extinction, when and why it could be applied, and to the conservation of the environment we still have. There is a long way to go before we consider a real Jurassic Park.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>See also:</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/creating-dinosaurs-why-jurassic-world-could-never-work-35484">Creating dinosaurs: why Jurassic World could never work</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42818/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Jurassic World is opening in cinemas this Thursday and again raises the idea of resurrecting extinct creatures. But there’s plenty of other contenders before we even think of recreating dinosaurs.Tamara Fletcher, Research Associate in Palaeontology, The University of QueenslandCaitlin Syme, PhD Candidate, Vertebrate Palaeontology, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199822013-11-20T19:20:40Z2013-11-20T19:20:40ZWill we hunt dingoes to the brink like the Tasmanian tiger?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/35585/original/2my3h9yv-1384839764.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A dead dingo in 2013 (left) and a Tasmanian tiger, last seen in the wild in 1932.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dingo photography by Aaron Greenville; a hunted thylacine in 1869, photographer unknown.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The last Tasmanian tiger died a lonely death in the Hobart Zoo in 1936, just 59 days after new state laws aimed at protecting it from extinction were passed in parliament. </p>
<p>But the warning bells about its likely demise had been pealing for several decades before that protection came too late - and today we’re making many of the same deadly mistakes, only now it’s with dingoes.</p>
<p>Earlier this month <a href="http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2013/11/7/baits-put-the-bite-on-feral-animals">the Queensland government announced</a> it would make it easier for farmers to put out poison baits for “wild dogs”. In <a href="http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2012/06/29/501441_national-news.html">Victoria</a>, similar measures have already been taken.</p>
<p>Lethal methods of control have lethal consequences. It is time to rethink our approach in how we manage our wild predators. </p>
<h2>A deadly history lesson</h2>
<p>Commonly known as Tasmanian tigers because of their striped backs, thylacines were hunted due to the species alleged damage they were doing to the sheep industry in the state. However, the thylacine’s actual impact on the industry was <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Last_Tasmanian_Tiger.html?id=wqIi6YTFPooC">likely to have been small</a>.</p>
<p>Instead, the species was made a scapegoat for poor management and the harshness of the Tasmanian environment, as early Europeans struggled implementing foreign farming practises to the new world.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>The tiger _[thylacine]</em>… received a very bad character in the Assembly yesterday; in fact, there appeared not to be one redeeming point in this animal. It was described as cowardly, as stealing down on the sheep in the night and want only killing many more than it could eat… All sheep owners in the House agreed that “something should be done,” as it was asserted that the tigers have largely increased of late years._
- The Mercury, October 1886.</p>
</blockquote>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Grainy footage is all we have left of the thylacine.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More than a century later, and it’s now the dingo in the firing line. </p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Since 1990, the number of sheep shorn in Queensland has crashed 92 per cent, from over 21 million to less than 2 million. Although there have been rises and falls in the wool price and droughts have come and gone, it’s the dingoes that have been the last straw.</em>
- <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2013-05-19/4691596">ABC Radio National, May 2013</a></p>
</blockquote>
<h2>An ancient predator vs modern farmers</h2>
<p>Producing sheep is an incredibly tough business, with droughts, international competition and volatile markets for wool and meat – mostly factors that are well beyond the control of an individual farmer. </p>
<p>Dingoes are seen as one of the few threats to livelihood that producers can fight back against. As a result, the dingo has experienced a severe range contraction since European settlement and there is mounting pressure to remove the dingo from the wild, despite dingoes calling Australia home for 4000 years.</p>
<p>Dingoes are now <a href="http://www.lib.washington.edu/Msd/norestriction/b63138219.pdf">rare or absent across half of Australia</a> due to intense control measures. While they are more common in other areas, we have seen how species populations can collapse quickly. For example, bounty records from Tasmania showed the <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Australia_s_Mammal_Extinctions.html?id=gcmfAgQcXDMC">thylacine population suddenly crashed</a> in 1904-1910 due to hunting pressure from humans. </p>
<p>Will the dingo’s demise be like that of the thylacine? We simply do not know, but the social conditions and a rapidly changing environment mirror the story of the thylacine.</p>
<p>It’s true that dingoes have an impact on livestock. Estimates from <a href="http://www.woolproducers.com.au/national-wild-dogs-action-plan/">industry-funded reports</a> range from A$40 million to A$60 million, which include damage to livestock and cost of control measures.</p>
<p>And the emotional cost to farmers should not be underestimated. As authors, one of us has sheep farmers in the family, and knows the pride people gain from having a happy and healthy flock. </p>
<p>The choice is whether we want to follow the old colonial attitude of trying to conquer our environment, or find new and cheaper methods to live with our environment. </p>
<h2>Dingoes and wild dogs</h2>
<p>The issue of how to manage one of the few remaining mammalian top predators in Australia is further complicated by the suggestion that dingoes are not distinct from “wild dogs” due to <a href="https://theconversation.com/dingoes-dogs-and-the-feral-identity-11635">interbreeding</a>.</p>
<p>In eastern Australia <a href="http://www.beefcentral.com/p/news/article/3954">dingo purity is low</a>, but it is still high in many regions, such as <a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/?paper=WR12128">central Australia</a>.</p>
<p>But whether you call them dingoes or wild dogs, these predators work as unpaid pest species manager that works around the clock, effectively <a href="http://theconversation.com/whos-afraid-of-the-big-bad-wolf-is-the-dingo-friend-or-foe-587">controlling feral cat and red fox numbers</a>. </p>
<p>Even in eastern Australia, there is <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2009.01650.x/full">evidence</a> that dingoes are fulfilling this role by reducing fox numbers. </p>
<p>Dingoes can also control kangaroo numbers, reducing grazing pressure. Reducing pests and grazing pressure are a win for farmers and conservation alike.</p>
<h2>Learning to live with dingoes</h2>
<p>As CSIRO researchers suggested a decade ago, we need to get better at dealing with genetically ambiguous animals, such as those that could be classified as dingoes or wild dogs. Instead, they argued that <a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/WR02045">better approach to conservation decisions</a> would involve protecting animals based on their role in the environment, as well as their cultural value.</p>
<p>Traditionally, barrier fences and lethal control (such as poisoning) have been used as methods to reduce livestock losses from dingoes.</p>
<p>However, the <a href="http://theconversation.com/can-australia-afford-the-dingo-fence-7101">costs of removing the dingo</a> as our free pest species manager, and the impact of <a href="http://theconversation.com/all-cost-little-benefit-was-barrier-fence-is-bad-news-for-biodiversity-12333">fences as barriers</a> to other wildlife, need to be taken into account when assessing the true cost of maintaining these approaches.</p>
<p><a href="http://theconversation.com/the-australian-dingo-to-be-respected-at-a-distance-8320">Alternatives to lethal control</a> do exist. <a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/WR11135">Guardian dogs</a> can protect stock from dog attack and have a return on investment between one to three years. Such cost-effective strategies can allow both the dingo and grazing to co-exist. </p>
<p>Over thousands of years, dingoes have played a functional role in the Australian landscape and can provide benefits for farmers, traditional Indigenous owners and to the <a href="http://www.ecolsoc.org.au/hot-topics/demise-dingo-1">conservation of native wildlife</a>.</p>
<p>It is time to learn how to live with the dingo. If not, we risk eventually driving dingoes out of the wild and into lonely zoo enclosures, just like the thylacine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19982/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aaron Greenville receives funding from Australian Postgraduate Award and Paddy Pallin Science Grant funded by Humane Society International, Royal Zoological Society of NSW.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glenda Wardle receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>The last Tasmanian tiger died a lonely death in the Hobart Zoo in 1936, just 59 days after new state laws aimed at protecting it from extinction were passed in parliament. But the warning bells about its…Aaron Greenville, PhD student and Research Assistant, Desert Ecology Research Group, University of SydneyGlenda Wardle, Associate Professor in Ecology, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.