Kathleen Sevy, age 13, of Clearfield, Utah for her question:
What is a Tasmanian wolf?
A century ago the settlers of Tasmania called him a hyena, a zebra wolf or a tiger wolf—and hunted him almost to extinction. As his numbers decreased, so did his bad reputation for making off with domesti¬cated sheep and poultry. Nowadays, the rare survivor is hunted to make sure he survives. A few are protected in national parks and a few are still hiding out in the wilds of western Tasmania.
Nowadays the Tasmanian wolf usually is called the thylacine, a scientific name which means the pouched dog with a wolf head. Like most mammals of this region he is a marsupial and the pouch refers to the pocket in which the female rears her immature offspring. This is not the only reason why he cannot be classed as a dog, though he looks like one and behaves much like a predatory wolf. He has four incisors on each side of both jaws; the true dogs have only three.
The thylacine is three feet long, plus an 18 inch tail and a wolfish head with a rather long face, bright black eyes and rounded ears. His short, thick hair is lightish brown and there are 16 to 18 chocolate brown stripes across his back, between his shoulders and the broad base of his tail.
In other parts of the world, the vegetarian mammals far outnumber the meat eaters. In the Australian region of marsupials, the vegetarians are even more numerous and the carnivores even more rare. And the thyla¬cine happens to be the biggest of all marsupial carnivores. His menu includes birds and small rat kangaroos and sometimes he manages to bring down a nice fat wallaby.
The thylacine is a night hunter, but though his sturdy legs are long and strong he is not a speeder. What’s more when he himself is pursued, he often bounds along on his hind legs like a kangaroo. When hunting, he depends on endurance and tracking skills. Sometimes he hunts alone, sometimes with a relative. The partners communicate with doggy growls and barks and sometimes the thylacins whines like a puppy.
In the distant past, his hunting grounds included the entire contin¬ent of Australia. But many centuries ago, this region was found and settled by sea faring Polynesians. They brought with them their half tame yellow dingo dog. In time, the dingoes ran wild and somehow managed to wipe out all the native thylacines. When modern settlers reached the scene, the thylacine survived only on the wondrous island of Tasmania.
As a hungry predator, one would expect this Tasmanian wolf to be a fierce, hot tempered character. No so. By nature he is a shy end very gentle animal. He gets along well with zoo keepers, though he never breeds in captivity.
Because of his shyness and rarity, little is known of the thylacine’s family life. The female’s pouch opens near the rear, which is unusual. Her litter may include one or two, three or four helpless little infants at a time. We do not know how often she breeds but thanks to modern conservation laws, her offspring now are protected from extinction. Though rare, the thylacine no longer is listed as an endangered species.