Tasmanian Tiger

I'm in Australia for a university semester, hence the lack of updates. I learned about the now-extinct thylacine (aka tasmanian tiger) in school, and I wanted to share it with all of you. Thylacines were marsupials (like kangaroos and possoms, so it had babies in a pouch), but over time developed characterics similar to the wolves we're used to back in North America. This is called convergent evolution- when totally different organisms end up looking similar through adaptation to their environment. From about 1800-1900 in Tasmania, the thylacines were hunted on a mass scale because they were believed to be threats to farmers' sheep. They had to compete with settlers' domestic dogs for dwindling prey at around the same time that a disease was further destroying the population. The last thylacine was Benjamin, which was captured in 1933 and lived in the Hobart Zoo for three years:

I watched a few films of thylacines at this website and I found it a little sad. Some people believe that thylacines still exist in the deep woods of Tasmania, but this is highly unlikely and unproven. Extinction is forever.