Which marsupial is extinct

DeSantis acknowledges the lack of data from Western Australia. Article 27 OCT NYU School of Medicine. Washington University in St. Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Advanced search. Skip to main content Thank you for visiting nature. You have full access to this article via your institution. Download PDF. Close banner Close. Email address Sign up. News, analysis, experiments, videos, games, and educational paths on the issues of energy and the environment for complete and topical information. The thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian wolf or Tasmanian tiger, was the largest known carnivorous marsupial.

Thylacines were widespread all over Australia and New Guinea, but these were confined in historical times in Tasmania, where now they have become extinct. The thylacine looked like a dog with stripes, but could sit on its hind legs and on its tail like a kangaroo and jump forward metres with great agility.

At the time of European colonization, the thylacine lived in Tasmania and was widespread specially in the areas near the forests. Probably it hunted at night in the grasslands while during the day it rested, hidden in the forests. The extinction of this curious animal seems to be due to different causes among which the consequence of competition that arose with the dingo, but not only this. From , rewards were promised to those who killed this animal, up to In the Government of Tasmania again began offering rewards to wipe them out, and in only a few years were killed.

This criterion fell into disuse in time, and in the end it was thought that an epidemic had definitively made the thylacines extinct. The last thylacine was captured in in West Tasmania and died in the zoo in Hobart in Since then many researches have been made to find traces of survival of the thylacine, with no results. No one will see a live thylacine again! To inform younger students about Energy and Environment, Science, Chemistry, English culture and English language, with accompanying images, interviews and videos.

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Supplement the classroom lessons with those that Eniscuola has created for you with the teachers and students of Italian schools. Here's a list of 10 marsupials that went extinct under the watch of human civilization. As Australian marsupials go, Potoroos aren't nearly as well-known as kangaroos, wallabies, and wombats--perhaps because they've dwindled to the brink of oblivion. Gilbert's Potoroo, the Long-Footed Potoroo, and the Long-Nosed Potoroo are still extant, but the Broad-Faced Potoroo hasn't been glimpsed since the late 19th century and is presumed extinct.

This foot-long, long-tailed marsupial looked unnervingly like a rat, and it was already diminishing in numbers before the first European settlers arrived in Australia. We can thank the naturalist John Gould--who depicted the Broad-Faced Potoroo in and painted many of the other marsupials on this list--for much of what we know about this long-gone creature. As with Potoroos previous slide , Australia's Nail-Tail Wallabies are critically endangered, with two species struggling for survival and a third that has been extinct since the midth century.

Like its extant relatives, the Northern Nail-Tail Wallaby and the Bridled Nail-Tail Wallaby, the Crescent Nail-Tail Wallaby was distinguished by the spike at the end of its tail, which presumably helped make up for its diminutive size only about 15 inches tall. Vanishingly rare to begin with, the Crescent Nail-Tail Wallaby apparently succumbed to predation by the Red Fox, which was introduced to Australia by British settlers in the early 19th century so they could indulge in the patrician sport of fox hunting.

The Desert Rat-Kangaroo has the dubious distinction of being declared extinct not once, but twice. This bulbous, foot-long marsupial, which indeed looked like a cross between a rat and a kangaroo, was discovered in the early s and memorialized on canvas by the naturalist John Gould.

The Desert Rat-Kangaroo then promptly disappeared from view for almost years, only to be rediscovered deep in the central Australian desert in the early s. While diehards hold out hope that this marsupial has somehow escaped oblivion it was officially declared extinct in , it's more likely that predation by Red Foxes eradicated it from the face of the earth.

As sad as it is that it's gone, it's something of a miracle that the Eastern Hare-Wallaby was ever discovered in the first place.

This pint-sized marsupial foraged exclusively at night, lived inside prickly bushes, had drab fur, and, when sighted, was capable of running at top speed for hundreds of yards at a stretch and jumping over a full-grown man's head. Like so many extinct marsupials of 19th-century Australia, the Eastern Hare-Wallaby was described and depicted on canvas by John Gould; unlike its relatives, though, we can't trace its demise to agricultural development or the depredations of Red Foxes it was more likely rendered extinct by cats, or trampling of its grasslands by sheep and cattle.

During the Pleistocene epoch, Australia was rife with monstrously sized marsupials--kangaroos, wallabies and wombats that could have given the Saber-Tooth Tiger a run for its money if, that is, they had shared the same continent.

The Giant Short-Faced Kangaroo genus name Procoptodon stood about ten feet tall and weighed in the neighborhood of pounds, or about twice as much as an average NFL linebacker we don't, however, know if this marsupial was capable of hopping to a comparably impressive height. Like other megafauna mammals worldwide, the Giant Short-Faced Kangaroo went extinct shortly after the last Ice Age, about 10, years ago, possibly as the result of human predation.

If the Ice Age film franchise ever changes its setting to Australia, the Lesser Bilby would be a potential breakout star. This tiny marsupial was equipped with long, adorable ears, a comically pointed snout, and a tail that took up over half its total length; presumably, the producers would take some liberties with its ornery disposition the Lesser Bilby was notorious for snapping and hissing at any humans who attempted to handle it.

Unfortunately, this desert-dwelling, the omnivorous critter was no match for the cats and foxes introduced to Australia by European settlers and went extinct by the midth century. The Lesser Bilby is survived by the slightly larger Greater Bilby, which itself is critically endangered.