Thylacine

Description

The Thylacine was once found in New Guinea and was widespread on the Australian mainland,but disappeared from the latter by at least 2000 years ago,probably because of predation by and competition from the Dingo Canis lupus (Johnson 2006).In modern times it was known only from Tasmania,which was isolated from the Australian mainland c.8000 – 10 000 years ago,before the arrival of the Dingo on the mainland.It was widespread in Tasmania,but most abundant in open forest and woodland (Guiler 1985;Paddle 2000).It occurred in most habitat types from low (east) to high (north-west) rainfall but at low densities in the south-west where rainfall is very high,soil fertility is very low,and vegetation is hummock grassland (button grass),wet scrub,or wet forest.