Thylacine
To Animals
Characterised by their distinctive black 'tiger' stripes running the width of the body, the slender carnivorous Thylacine or 'Tasmanian Wolf' preferred the meat of other native marsupials and mammals, and was said to prey on the farmed animals introduced through European settlement. Long extinct in New South Wales, the last reports of sightings of thylacine date back to the 1930s. Although specific to Tasmania at the time of their extinction, Thylacine were once common to all of mainland Australia. It is thought the introduction of the Dingo - the more aggressive hunter - brought about its mainland extinction through competition for the same diet. The last Thylacine died in captivity in 1936.
In 2008, Andrew Pask and his colleagues at the University of Melbourne, resurrected genetic material from a 100-year-old pouch young Thylacine in a mouse. The DNA samples were taken from three infant animals preserved in alcohol and one adult pelt although the genes were fragmented. The Thylacine DNA was injected into very early mouse eggs. It was incorporated into the mouse genome and expressed, in this case, in the bone cells of the mouse. The expression was visible and the mouse development was unaffected. This was an exciting scientific advancement; allowing scientists to be able to reveal how dinosaurs or Neanderthals once looked.
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