The Last Known Tasmanian Tiger Was Just Found in a Museum Cupboard

The remains of the last living tiger were thought to have been lost forever, but they have been found.

The Tasmanian tiger is a large animal that is related to quolls and numbats. By the early 20th century the pouched mammals were only found in a small part of the country.

The remains of the final captive thylacine were accidentally included in an educational program that traveled from school to school.

Children were allowed to pat the specimen on its flattened fur. The body was forgotten about in the 1980s because no one realized what they were doing.

It is a sad end to a sad life. After being illegally captured by a trapper in May of 1936, the older female was secretly sold to the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart, where she would die of exposure just a few months later.

No one knew that this would be the last tiger to live in a zoo. Records show that people were still hunting after 1936.

The body of the last thylacine at Beaumaris Zoo was not celebrated or labeled because of the hope of finding another survivor.

"For years, many museum curators and researchers searched for its remains without success, as no material from 1936 had been recorded in the zoological collection, and so it was assumed its body had been discarded," says Robert Paddle.

The treasure hunt was brought back to life recently when Paddle and Kathryn Medlock stumbled upon a report.

The last known living individual of its kind was gifted to TMAG by the museum's taxidermist in a 1936/ 1937 log.

It wasn't found in the zoological section of the museum. There was an education section in the museum.

The museum's taxidermist, William Cunningham, tanned the skin to make it look like a flat skin, which made it easy to transport and use as a demonstration specimen.

Peddle and Medlock are hoping that the myths surrounding the last tiger will be put to rest.

The National Museum of Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive have official websites where you can find these false statements.

According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the last tiger in captivity was a male named Benjamin.

There was a male thylacine at the Beaumaris Zoo in 1935, but he wasn't Benjamin, and he wasn't the last. The rumor was made up by a person who didn't work at the zoo.

Paddle told Adam Langenberg that it was an unfortunate myth.

It's time to take it out of the books. I haven't mentioned it in the paper.

The male at Beaumaris was the last one to be filmed. The 1935 video of the male Tassie tiger was recently uploaded to the internet.

The male thylacine can be seen pacing in his enclosure while visitors shake his cage. A narrator says "this is the only one in captivity in the world" if you listen to the audio.

It wasn't true for a while if it was true at the time.

According to the museum's records, the female was the winner over the male after 'Benjamin' was released.

This was the last one ever held at a zoo, and it's likely that there were only a few left in the wild. Hunting is thought to have contributed to the extinction of the animal across the state.

The remains of the last known tylacine are currently on display at TMAG.

The Australian Zoologist website will soon be home to Paddle and Medlock's paper.