Brian's Musings: The Land Down Under has Some Weird Animals

Biodiversity Heritage Library, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

I’m not going to get into all the ways Australia and New Zealand are different from everywhere else in the world. And Tasmania is part of that too. I want to talk about a specific animal, the Tasmanian Tiger.   Read an article about it HERE. ​

While distinct from the Tasmanian Devil, in an important aspect that the Devil is still alive, the last Tasmanian Tiger dies in 1936, in a zoo. The last wild Tasmanian Tiger was shot and killed in 1930. I’d hate to be that guy, sort of like the 14yo kid that shot the last American Passenger Pigeon.
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Like the woolly Mammoth, there are apparently efforts to bring back the Tasmanian Tiger using DNA and cloning. Did I mention that both the male and female of the species have pouches? The Tiger and Devil are relatives. The Tasmanian Devil still exists today and seems to have an appropriate name. It looks cute, kind of like a baby black bear, except for those teeth.

​As For Tasmanian Devils, read about them HERE.

The Tasmanian Devils are also a fascinating animal. While extinct on mainland Australia for millennia, they have been re-introduced to save the species from extinction. It seems that the Devils in Tasmania have been ravaged by a cancer that is transmitted through a bite. Yet another weird thing going on down there.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll find this strange and useless information interesting. If not, then you can ignore it and move on.