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The last confirmed wild Thylacine kill, that of an adult male, was made by Wilfred Batty on a property leased by his father in the Parish of Anderson, within the Mawbanna district on the north-west coast of Tasmania, at midday on the 13th of May 1930. In terms of the historical traceability of the species in the wild, the shooting of the Mawbanna Thylacine, the first of only four evidentially supported specimens recovered during the 1930s, antedates the capture of the two Delphin juveniles by 55 and 83-89 days respectively, the male of which being the only credible candidate for the last captive Thylacine (Linnard et al., 2020; Linnard & Sleightholme, 2023). It also predates the 1931 Kaine capture (Sleightholme et al., 2020), the final evidentially supported occasion when a Thylacine was retrieved from the wild by approximately nine months. A contemporary newspaper article provided a brief account of the kill with the incident becoming synonymous with the trophy image of Batty posed with the dead Thylacine. However, before his death in 1989 Batty's testimony was recorded by three detailed sources - McIntyre (1955), Thompson (1974) and Ryghe (1990), allowing a more nuanced understanding of the circumstances surrounding the kill. Additionally, this publication introduces three previously unseen photographs, allowing all the known images of the kill to be sequenced, attributed, and their context discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Thylacine or 'Tasmanian tiger' (Thylacinus cynocephalus), an iconic canid-like marsupial predator and last member of its taxonomic family (Thylacinidae) to have survived to modern times, was declared officially extinct in the early 1980s, half a century after the death of the last captive animal. However, the regularity and frequency of sightings of the species over more than eight decades since has not only created a zoological mystery, but also made it challenging to reconstruct the timeline of the fate of the species. To help resolve this intriguing historical-ecological problem, we compiled and curated a comprehensive inventory of documented sighting records from Tasmania from 1910 to 2019. By examining sources spanning official archives, published reports, museum collections, newspaper articles, microfilm, contemporary correspondence, private collections and other miscellaneous citations and testimony, we have amassed 1,223 unique Thylacine records from this period and resolved previous anomalies and duplications. Each observation in the database is dated, geo-tagged, categorised, quality-rated, referenced and linked to an image of its source material. Although purported observations have occurred every year, reporting rates vary across the decades in terms of frequency, type, location, and quality rating. Here we describe the database in detail, highlight its value for research, interpret the major patterns revealed by this archival compilation, and discuss the broader implications of the result of this work on the likely time and place of the Thylacine's extinction in the wild. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last known captive Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) died at the Beaumaris Zoo on Hobart's Queen's Domain on the evening of Monday the 7th September 1936. However, within six months of its death the date of its capture was being inaccurately reported. Over the ensuing years there has been much debate and controversy relating to its source, sex, period of display, welfare, and more recently the fate of its remains. Whilst there has been some agreement, significant confusion has been created by the disparate, fragmentary, and often contradictory sources of evidence, with five distinctly exclusive provenances proposed for this specimen. For a species whose extinction was hastened by anthropogenic interventions, we have a moral obligation to preserve as much factual detail as possible about the Thylacine. To this end, the authors have undertaken a thorough review of the hypotheses advanced by Smith (1981) & Paddle (2000); Guiler (1986) & Bailey (2001); Sleightholme et al., 2020; Linnard et al., 2020 and Paddle & Medlock (2023), and have evaluated each against a synthesis of the evidence accrued over the previous 93 years to examine whether a definitive identification and history of the last known captive Thylacine can be determined. The authors found a sufficiently strong correlation between the evidence and the position advanced by Linnard et al., (2020) to maintain that the last captive Thylacine can be identified as the juvenile male captured at Penney's Flats on the Arthur River by 19 year old Roy and 59 year old Dan Delphin on the evening of Monday 7th July 1930. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors present a comprehensive catalogue of 112 known photographs of the Thylacine or Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus), both from zoological collections and the small number of images that were taken in the wild. Throughout the literature, numerous inaccuracies relating to the provenance of the photographs have entered into publication. These errors often go unchallenged and are blindly replicated in subsequent publications as truths. The perpetuation of such errors can only frustrate or complicate future research effort into the species, hence the need for a reliable reference. This paper provides a summary of the work involved in developing the catalogue, together with a synopsis of the findings. The catalogue has been named the Thylacine Image Registry [TIR], and is published here for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thylacine (Thyladnus cynocephalus) once ranged widely across Tasmania from the east to west coasts. The authors present the first comprehensive study to delineate the extent of the thylacine's post-1900 range, based on the retrospective analysis of 1167 geo-referenced capture, kill, and confirmed sighting reports, from 1900 to 1940. They examine the probable causes of population collapse, and discuss the possibility that the species survived into the 1940s and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A list of the thylacine specimens housed in collections of the Czech Republic is given and all available data on the specimens are provided, including the photographs. One mounted skin is in the National Museum Prague and one complete skull in the private Zoological Museum Protivín. Four pouch juveniles (liquid specimens) of the estimated age of two weeks are housed at the Department of Zoology, Charles University, Prague. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

David Fleay's 1933 motion film footage of the last captive thylacine at the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart was thought to be the only film record of this thylacine. The authors provide evidence to confirm that two earlier motion picture films, erroneously dated to 1928, also show the last captive specimen at the zoo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most comprehensive assessment of the breeding season of the thylacine was that undertaken by Eric Guiler of the University of Tasmania in 1961. Guiler based his study on a retrospective analysis of government bounty records. The authors contend that the bounty records contain inherent anomalies that undermine Guiler's findings, and argue that historical newspaper reports, together with museum and zoo records, provide better data to determine the natural boundaries of the breeding season of the thylacine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some of the rarest of all thylacine specimens are the alcohol preserved pouch young of which 10 specimens were known to exist. In November 201 I, a remarkable discovery was made in the zoological collection of Charles University in the Czech Republic of four pouch young at an early stage in their development. These specimens are described for the first time in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gender of the last captive thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) or Tasmanian tiger has been a point of debate since its death at the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart, Tasmania on the night of the 7th September 1936. Recent detailed examination of a single frame from the historic motion film footage taken by Dr David Fleay in 1933 has confirmed that the thylacine was male. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]