Thylacines!
In comments, Texan wrote me about the Rat-Squirrel, which was thought to be extinct, found.
Thanks, Texan.
I had read that, it is really fascinating. There are so many animals that are extinct that I would wish we'd find!
One of my favorite is the tasmanian tiger, or thylacine.
http://www.naturalworlds.org/thylacine/
It was a carnivorous marsupial that was hunted to extinction in the early 20th century.
What an amazing animal.
posted by Siamang @ 10:17 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
I like those guys too. How cool would it be to see a marsupial wolf? (do I have that right? is the tiger actually a wolf?)
This world fascinates me!
Texan
It's not a wolf or a tiger. Those are both mammals. This is a marsupial!
It's what's called "parallel evolution" where a different lineage of animals evolves into a similar form, based on environmental pressures.
It's like dolphins are the mammalian way of making a fish body. Wheras Icthyosaurus was the dinosaur way of making a fish body.
This was a marsupial that had evolved to fill pretty much the same ecological niche as the dingo. The dingo wound up winning in the end.
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Here's a good new one for you siamang:
Mystery NC Beast
Edited before because I hade the URL wrong.
Nice one, cully.
That's a really nice fox!
We still have some nice rare wild animals in america!
Cautious,
Please do science nitpick all you want!
My knowledge comes from crappy lay-science books. I had no idea until you made me look it up that Ichthyosaurs were Ichthyopterygia not Dinosauria. Both suborders of subclass Diapsida of Class Sauropsida.
The taxonomic tree I'm looking at doesn't place them any closer to lizards. But I don't know the branching points, as I don't have a cladogram.
I'm using wikipedia. It's a useful semi-lay friendly catalogue, ordered hierarchicly.
And OOOPS, can I really be so poorly informed as to not know that marsipials are mammals?!!
That's just abhorrant. No excuse for that one.
Thanks again, Cautious!
Too bad there's no date stamp. That is wierd!
Anyway, thanks for those links. I use wikipedia, but I'll check those out as well.
No worries about getting the ichthyosaur wrong, so did I!!!
I'm just glad you got me looking around. Sometimes I talk based on old understanding. I don't work in the field and so my knowlege is rusty.
I just got done reading Zimmer's Smithsonian's Intimate Guide to Human Origins, and I can't begin to tell you how much has changed in the 20 years since I took physical anthropology in college. It's actually quite shocking how far the science has come. Stuff that was a complete mystery has been settled, and where the hell was I? Why am I just hearing this now?!?!
lol!
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