Talk:Thylacine

New remains found

Wow, its a bit confusing at the moment but there are reports of remains that have been found and it is unclear if they are thought to be the one known as "Benjamin" or if they are later remains as they are female.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/05/tasmanian-tiger-remains-of-the-last-known-thylacine-unearthed-in-museum Mutley (talk) 09:27, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Not too confusing, apparently there was a short lived captive female after Benjamin, which is where the skin is from. FunkMonk (talk) 10:49, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks it looks like it. About the dates, so Benjamin died on 6th September and the new died one died on the 7th September or did they somehow give that date to Benjamin as they are close.Mutley (talk) 11:31, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Keeping precise death dates for animals largely seen as unwanted pests may not have been a high priority in those days. HiLo48 (talk) 23:05, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, maybe there was a fine line between "pest" and "one of the rarest and most exotic animals on the planet". Mutley (talk) 10:29, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

That line is 90 years wide. HiLo48 (talk) 00:04, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

The ABC News article https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-05/last-tasmanian-tiger-remains-found-in-museum-cupboard/101733008 specifies that this was the last captive, which is sometimes referred to as "Benjamin" due to an old hoax. Direct quote: "It has long been believed that the last-known thylacine was a male, sometimes known as Benjamin, but Dr Paddle said that was a rumour peddled by a "bullshit artist"." In fact, there's a follow-up article (published today) dedicated to talking about the hoax which mentions Wikipedia as one of the major sites spreading the information -- we probably should do something about that. Arcorann (talk) 06:19, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Yikes, yeah, and I'm sure there'll come a more scientific report about this. FunkMonk (talk) 08:17, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

So what should we call him now? TMFKAB? The Marsupial formerly known as Benjamin? Mutley (talk) 10:37, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I remember once being told it was called Benjamin before they knew it was a female. Strange how these things spread. That said, if the National Museum of Australia is publishing incorrect information, I see how it ended up here. CMD (talk) 10:46, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

How about this one https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tasmanian_wolf.jpg - See the author "Benjamin A Sheppard". It seems that Benjamin A Sheppard was a photographer from the 1920s that took photos of Thylacines in captivity. Purely speculation but maybe Frank Darby saw one of these photos where the author signed his name and took it to be the name of the last recorded Thylacine? Mutley (talk) 11:10, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps, but we'd need a source reaching that conclusion. FunkMonk (talk) 13:04, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Hello,

Link to the follow up article. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-06/benjamin-thylacine-tasmanian-tiger-naming-myth-persists/101734442

Derek Scaith (talk) 10:49, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, in that case, we need to not just remove the name Benjamin from the article, but explain that there has been a historical mistake. FunkMonk (talk) 12:29, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

While the name Benjamin is indeed a mistruth, the animal is confirmed to be male. Contemporary accounts refer to it as a male, and a study of the footage reveals testes.

http://www.naturalworlds.org/thylacine/captivity/Benjamin/Benjamin_5.htm#:~:text=Note%20Fleay's%20choice%20of%20words,opening%20almost%20to%20the%20ears'. 166.181.87.66 (talk) 13:37, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I think the current wording - which says the last captive thylacine was female - is still confusing and appears to contradict Endling#Mammals. The latter quotes a 2023 paper concluding that the Hobart Zoo thylacine was male.[1] Muzilon (talk) 00:56, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Unreviewed featured articles/2020/2004–2009

I read the article as part of the above drive. The article may need a featured article review, in due course, if the problems noted below aren't addressed.

• The lead doesn't summarise the article, it doesn't mention large topics in the body, for example the zoo animal Benjamin, cultural significance or Research.
• There is info in the lead not in the body - aboriginal names
• The lead mentions the water possum and should stay focussed on thylacine
• The lead is confusing, it writes bounties are generally blamed for the extinction - but the body writes the animal was already extinct on mainland Australia by the time Europeans arrived
• The lead is too short and interesting information such as the animal could open its mouth to 80 degrees is omitted.

Desertarun (talk) 12:18, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Be sure to review all comments above, and check archives for anything that may have gone unaddressed since Yomangani's departure from Wikipedia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:43, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

• There either needs to be an explanation of where the name "Benjamin" came from, OR the name needs to be removed from the section title and from the figure captions. The current state is half-assed and confusing! --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:00, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

• The name "Benjamin" needs to be removed, apart from mentioning it as a persistent hoax/myth that has been conferred legitimacy through being uncritically accepted by mainstream sources - see: Stop calling the last thylacine Benjamin, Tasmanian tiger researcher says. Bahudhara (talk) 05:44, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

  Calls out Wikipedia as part of the myth. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:41, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

• When this article was promoted to FA it was 20Kb in size, now its 120Kb. I can do a lot of heavy lifting but the article is wholly unbalanced. It requires much of the cloning research and unconfirmed sections to be deleted, updating with new content, huge amounts of copyediting and all of the modern FA cricteria elements. I'm going to continue to try and save this, but I'm doubtful FA status is salvageable. Desertarun (talk) 21:06, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Looks like you're doing a good job, if you're willing to continue, I imagine it's ok to keep it from FARC in the meantime? FunkMonk (talk) 08:46, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm not taking this to FAR myself, and it doesn't look like anybody else is interested at this time. I'm not sure when I'll move on from this article or how close it will be to the current FA standard when I move on. Its just a work in progress at the moment. Desertarun (talk) 09:39, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Regarding its extinction, the body of the article explains that it was probably extinct on the mainland 2,000 years ago, because of several possible factors, one of which may be competition from the dingo, which did not exist in Tasmania. In Tasmania, the additional factor, and almost certainly a major one in it's eventual extinction there, was the bounties paid by the government. That's a little bit complicated, and looking back at my wording there, probably hard to summarise for the lead. If someone can do it better than me, please do so.

• I've finished working on the article. I put in 200+ edits and all of the structural work was done. I don't believe it needs a FAR. I'm going to unwatch it now because I'm burnt out with it and don't want to do anymore. Desertarun (talk) 09:19, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Unless someone else has stuff to fix, I'll try to read the article and see if I find issues. FunkMonk (talk) 12:38, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Is this an WP:ELNO link (hosting without copyright permission)?

• https://web.archive.org/web/20130521142704/http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gregheberle/AdobePDF/Thylacine/ThylacinePaper2004-P1-5.pdf SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:24, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

There should be an explanation of what the species name "cynocephalus" means. LittleJerry (talk) 12:47, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

There's clearly still huge problems with the article to do with citations. I would support delisting. Hemiauchenia (talk) 09:42, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 May 2023

Change "Both genders had a pouch" to "Both sexes had a pouch". See difference between sex and gender. Zombieite (talk) 21:16, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

I have done this for you Zombieite (talk) - thanks for helping contribute to the article! The Troutinator (talk) 09:38, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

They had almost died out out from

In the lede, the sentence that begins "They had almost died out out on the Australian mainland from around 2,000 years ago..." is not very good. I presume the duplicated "out" is just a typo; if the second "out" was meant to form a phrase "out on the Australian mainland" this is a poor choice of words. I don't know what to make of "almost died out...from around 2,000 years ago". What does that mean? If it means that their population started declining 2,000 years ago and they almost died out, we should say that. -- Srleffler (talk) 07:24, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

There is better wording for that situation in the section of the article titled Dying out on the Australian mainland, where it is well sourced, so I have used that text to replace to poor wording you identified. Thanks for raising the issue. HiLo48 (talk) 08:13, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Doubts about climate change as cause for extinction

The idea that climate change was a factor in the extinction of the Thylacine his highly dubious at best. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zenzpete (talk • contribs) 11:00, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Zenzpete - That was my first impression too, but that part of the section titled Dying out on the Australian mainland is well sourced. HiLo48 (talk) 22:45, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

The source does give climate change as a legitimate cause, but it is one of many, and i'd be OK with reducing its importance to the level of human encroachment or the distemper disease etc. If nobody objects I will come back at a later time and do this, or someone else can do it. Desertarun (talk) 20:19, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Dingoes hunting thylacines

An omission from this article is the reason the dingo is likely to be the major cause of thylacine's extinction. It does seem clear to me that the dingo predated on the thylacine and actively killed them, in the same way that the Gray Wolf when reintroduced into America began hunting Coyotes and drastically reduced their numbers in that locality, but I didn't find a source that says this. The closest I came was finding a source that said dingoes aren't present on Tasmania and this is the smoking gun that means they pushed out thylacine on the Australian mainland. Desertarun (talk) 20:19, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Just be careful of writing something that is obviously your own original research. ALL our content is expected to be backed up by reliable, independent sources. This same comment applies to your proposal in the section above. HiLo48 (talk) 00:35, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Of course, I'm saying I think a source for this exists, so does anyone have it? Desertarun (talk) 05:05, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

New brain paper

See https://www-pnas-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2306516120 Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:19, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

When I click on that link I see "To view this link you need to be an eligible library user. Please login to continue." It's obviously not available to most of us. Can you summarise what it's telling us, and perhaps copy and paste some relevant content please? HiLo48 (talk) 01:11, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Quote of core of abstract:

Here, we gained access to a century-old hematoxylin-stained histological series of a thylacine brain, digitalized it at high resolution, and compared its forebrain cellular architecture with 34 extant species of monotremes, marsupials, and eutherians. Phylogenetically informed comparisons of cortical folding, regional volumes, and cell sizes and densities across cortical areas and layers provide evidence against brain convergences with canids, instead demonstrating features typical of marsupials, and more specifically Dasyuridae, along with traits that scale similarly with brain size across mammals. Enlarged olfactory, limbic, and neocortical areas suggest a small-prey predator and/or scavenging lifestyle, similar to extant quolls and Tasmanian devils. These findings are consistent with a nonuniformity of trait convergences, with brain traits clustering more with phylogeny and head/body traits with lifestyle.

Comes with the freely accessible full scans.--Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:09, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

References

Possums

The description of the Thylacine’s ideal prey says “small to medium-sized prey such as […] opossums”. Shouldn’t this be edited to “possums” and point to Phalangeriformes instead? Australasian possums are a completely different animal (the opossum article even makes this distinction). Soskit (talk) 23:24, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Conflict with Endlings

The current section about the last captive thylacine - which says the animal was female is confusing and appears to contradict Endling#Mammals in regard to details such as the gender of the animal, and the trapper who caught it. The Endlings article quotes a 2023 review which concludes that the last Hobart zoo thylacine was male.[2] Muzilon (talk) 00:56, 6 March 2024 (UTC) Muzilon (talk) 00:19, 8 March 2024 (UTC)