成人快手

The lost remains of the last known Tasmanian tiger have been found stashed in an Australian museum cupboard. The thylacine died in captivity at Hobart Zoo in 1936 and its body was given to a local museum. But what happened to its skeleton and skin afterwards had been an enduring mystery.

Researchers of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery discovered the remains were stored in a cupboard all along, but had not been catalogued properly.

We spoke to Jack Ashby, the assistant director at the University Museum of Zoology in Cambridge, who saw the remains while on a research trip earlier this year. He says what makes this discovery so significant is that "they are really an important part of the story of the Tasmanian tiger."

"It's a beautiful skin, fairly large size, still got all its original colours, beautiful striping over the back end of its body and little zig-zag patterns between the stripes," says Mr Ashby.

"It had been taken round schools in Tasmania in the last century as an example... as a palpable link to the extinction of an iconic species," he adds.

(Photo: Tanned skin of the last thylacine that died in the Hobart Zoo on 7 September 1936.
Credit: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery)

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