Another Thylacine Photo?
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on October 11th, 2006
Did another Down Under vacationer snap a photograph of a thylacine?
I was tipped off to this photo on The Book Of ThoTH message forum. The text accompanying the photo is also included below.
A friend of mine went on vacation to Australia, and he e-mailed me this picture a week ago- he said he snapped a picture as soon as he saw the animal, and the flash made it run away.. He said it was small, like a puppy, and it ran akwardly towards a larger "striped German-shephard /Kangaroo thing", and they both disappeared into the brush.
He called it a "Striped Puppy Kangaroo Thing", and he sent it to me because I used to be a vet tech and can ID almost any animal, and am especially good with dog breeds. I think he may have seen 2 Thylacines, but it’s not a good picture. He took one as they were running off, too, but you can’t see anything in it except bushes and the night sky. When he showed me the picture, I told him I thought they may be Tassie Tigers, and that he should tell someone.I also told him to hold on to his pictures since in my research I read that sometimes when people report sightings park rangers confiscate their evidence. He wrote me the next day saying that everyone he talked to told him he didn’t see a Tassie Tiger, and he said a policeman he mentioned it to threatened to take him in for pranking. When he told the cop it wasn’t a prank, the cop told him "You didn’t see anything, understood?"
I’ve known this boy forever, and he is always honest (brutally so, at times)
Click on image for full size version
What do you think?
He finally ok’d me to share it, but he wants his identity to remain private. He was very offended by the people in Tasmania calling him a liar, and the cop shook him up pretty bad. He seems convinced that that cop will track him down, the poor guy
Anywho, it’d be nice to find out what other people think of this…
I think it’s damn convincing. Aside from the damn plant in the way, I’d say I’m convinced. The number of stripes is variable, from what I’ve read, and this is also a pup, as he said.. I can’t find any info on patterns of pups- does anyone else have info?
If anyone is out there who maybe has equipment to maybe edit out the plants or something, that would be great
By the way- He said he was hiking near "Savage River" when he took this photo, and that it was not far from a wildlife preserve or park of some sort, yet he was also not far from all sorts of factories and mining operations…
If this truly is a Tassie, then that’s also a horrible place for some polluting, disgusting mines.
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
The back legs look a little marsupialoid, but the head says one thing to me-dachshund. I have a dachshund, and the head is pretty much exactly like hers, right down to the ear backflop.
Wow a pretty amazing pic and the best i’ve seen so far! It appears to be either the real deal or a hoax in the form of a stuffed animal or digital manipulation. How did he manage to get in so close? A view panned out showing the animals head and tail would have been so much nicer! Regardless, this is a very exciting development and I look forward to hearing updates. Please keep us posted. 🙂
ok – I wonder why the forum account (book of thoth) has been suspended by the webhost? (although the error message says to contact the billing department…)
I expect they simply haven’t yet paid their hosting for the month. Looks like a standard message to that effect to me. Let’s hope it is only temporary, I notced that myself earlier and I was looking forward to checking out the comments on that forum!
The best Thylacine photo to come out since the last one died in captivity
Yeah, it’s promising alright. I am glued to my seat in anticipation. Problem is it is still inconclusive. If only we could see the head or at least the tail. It could be anything! Photo shop, museum display, bandicoot (unlikely I think), pig, painted dog or even tantalisingly the real thing! I really hope more details are forthcoming. The uncropped original and the 2nd pic would be great to see and help us in identifying just exactly what is in that image. I’m about 50/50 on whether this is a hoax/misidentification or real at the moment.
I don’t think it’s real. But I hope that somebody somewhere does get pix or film of a real one soon. Surely it is just a matter of time.
After all, the black-footed ferret (another one of my favorite “extinct” beasties) turned up – critically endangered but alive and in a breeding population – a few years back.
I hold out the hope that soon, hopefully very soon, the thylacine will too.
Kittenz – I have a feeling that before the end of 2010 we will have our answer 🙂
I don’t know why, or where it comes from, but there you go.
I think the Australian government is covering up things, maybe in an attempt to save the precious view animals alive (if still).
youcantryreachingme ,
I sure do hope that’s so. It would be wonderful.
Party Time
Happy Birthday Youcantry 🙂
Hope you dont have to wait till 2010 to get your present!
I would sincerly like to believe this photograph and I do think that it is very convincing. Some thoughts:
1.) Has anyone thought to analysis the photo for photoshop? I am not a professional, but is there some way to compare pixelation, data compression, things like that?
2.) One hears stories of Thylacines being sighted in Tasmainia with fair regularity. One also hears stories that there are locals who will firmly deny the sightings because they feel that the best way to protect them is to simply leave them alone.
3.) I’m inclined to think that the creature in the photograph is alive. Not nessesarily a tiger, but certainly alive.
4.) The base of the tail looks very thick for a placental mammal, who tend to mave slender, flexible tails. But this could be explained by the angle of the photo and the curviture of the leg.
5.) It’s highly unlikely that a wild animal would allow the photographer to get so close, but it does happen. It’s happened to me several times and I don’t know who was more surprised, me or the beastie. If the animal in question is indeed a juvenile it becomes even more plausible; young animals are like young children. Careless and unaware of danger.
hahaha. Did I publish that? 😀 Thank you plesiosaurus.
Crystalwren – I like your analogy with children – careless and unaware of danger 🙂
Ha! I remember when I was 5 and grabbed an electric fence. That was the best time I’ve ever had being electrocuted, though the scariest. I can just imagine a little Thylacine checking out a cricket while its mom watches, when some tourist w/ a camera walks by and snaps a photo just after his footsteps alert the pup and it starts running back to its mom.
P.S. The positioning of the fur reminds me of my Boxor, who does not have stripes, and the head shape looks like that of several puppies I’ve seen.
With further thought I feel I must add to my comments above. (And will probably repeat a lot or most of what’s already been said above- sorry.)
If it is a hoax then it’s quite a remarkably well-done one.
Firstly, the photograph crops out the two main areas that would provide a definitive identification: the skull/jaws and the tail/rump. While the skull of a thylacine is superficially similar to that of a canid- at least until it yawns- any decent biologist worth their degree would be able to tell the difference; especially if so much as a single tooth were apparent, given the dramatic difference between marsupial dentation and mammal dentation. Even better for identification purposes is the rump and tail area for obvious reasons; the only animal that comes close to the size and hip and tail structure is a wallaby and you’d have to be flamin’ blind to mistake one for the other. The photo also crops out two other important identification areas, the paws and the back legs. I’m not familiar with thylacine paw structure but again, logically speaking it would have to be only superficially similar to that of an equivalent-sized placental mammal. The back legs are again only superficially similar to a canine’s legs and don’t really hold up to comparison. The front legs do look fairly similar, however. It’s a pity that the shot is of the animal’s back and not its belly. Rib structure would surely be helpful, but then there’s always the practical consideration of height difference. (Curses.)
Secondly, speaking of legs, the witness’s description of running ‘akwardly’ tallies with accounts of the thylacine’s gait; a bizarre ‘hopping’ run.
Thirdly, to reiterate my point above, getting a clear photograph of a juvenile as opposed to an adult is surely much more likely. Juveniles of all species generally don’t all make it too adulthood. Mostly because of lack of food, but often because they are stupid. They get caught, they can’t catch food, food sees them coming and vacates the area, etc.
Fourthly, the fact that the stripes don’t match with many known photos actually makes it that much more convincing for me. I’d be suspicious if they were an exact match. It’s simple common sense that the stripes are going to vary from individual to individual, area to area, (possible) subspecies to subspecies. For example, line up all a hundred or so chestnut racehorses with a white stripe on their nose. You’d think that they’d all fit the bill of a single classic stripe down their nose and to a degree you’d be right given the genetic similarity of an given breed. But surely on one end you’d have the beasts with the barest smudge of white between their eyes and on the other you’d have beasts that look as though they’ve dunked their whole head into a bucket of whitewash. A domestic creature is probably not the best example but I’m sure you get the idea.
If this is a hoax, then the people who set it up have either done their basic homework and/or are very lucky. The beast in the photograph does resemble a piglet. (It’d have to be a domestic piglet, of course.) I’ve no doubt that the beast, whatever the species, was at the time alive. Skin tone, the bare patch on the leg, the appearance of the coat, the appearance of the animal as a whole- I’ve seen a lot of mounted animals in my life, and no matter how skilled the taxidermist it you’d never mistake a mounted animal for a live one, not at any short distance anyway. I’d also think that mounted thylacines are scarce enough for an uproar to be raised if any went missing from a museum.
This is Tasmania we’re talking about. It’s astonishingly easy to loose human beings who don’t want to be lost; how easy would it be in comparison to hide a smallish, shy species in isolated pockets of some of the most inaccessible country in Australia and New Zealand? Especially if the Tassie thylacine is as suspected, at least partially arboreal?
That said, if there are tigers remaining in Tasmania (we’ll ignore the occasional reports of ones on the mainland) I fear for their future, no matter how protective of them the locals are. You have the burgeoning population of foxes and other feral species, loss of prey animals and habitat, and add to that, the cancer virus that’s currently wiping out the devils. It’s probable that the virus wouldn’t be able to jump species to the thyliacines- probable, but not impossible. It happens, both in domestic animals and in the wild.
Crystalwren – just a couple of quick points. I’m going to counter your points one by one – not to be difficult, or necessarily say I personally disagree, but just to show how some of this logic (on both our parts) really can lead us to no reasonable conclusion at all.
I agree, the missing head and tail are critical, but if this were a hoax, it would not be hard to acheive. Take a photo of a taxidermy which is in situ in a museum. Alternatively, take a photo of a dog with stripes painted on. Crop the photo.
Remember, we don’t have the original camera-versions of this photo.
If you’re setting out to produce a hoax using, say, a small painted dog, you have all the time in the world to take a hundred photos if you want, before you get the one you’ll launch on the world.
I can’t really comment on legs or ribs, as I’ll admit – from photos alone I find the physiology of the thylacine remarkably similar to dogs.
I agree with you – the liklihood of photographing an independent juvenile is probably higher than photographing an adult.
I disagree with your logic applied to the stripe pattern. The stripes – as presented – are drastically different to any known image of a thyalcine, including those animals which were sparsely striped. For this to be genuine, we’d also be staring at a striping pattern never documented before. Again, not impossible, but not likely (in my opinion).
I agree the skin tone implies a live animal, but I want to point out you can’t trust colour as a diagnostic feature. Any image editing software could have altered the hue of the entire image to produce something more life-like from a photo of a taxidermy.
Again – it may well be a dog which is, in fact, alive.
I have seen mention here on Cryptomundo that thylacines were presumed arboreal – but I don’t find any such references in the printed literature. I think this is a false conception, although it is true they could jump very well.
Also, I wouldn’t describe an adult male thylacine as “smallish”. They were easily 4 to 6 foot long and the largest non-human mammal on the island.
You mentioned ignoring the occassional mainland sightings. Mainland sightings actually outnumber Tasmanian sightings by more than 10 to 1. Actually, some of the most intriguing recent non-Tasmanian sightings are from Irian Jaya near the border of Indonesia and New Guinea (as discussed elsewhere here on Cryptomundo, in the Steve Irwin threads).
I love the critical thinking, but I think without the photographer coming forward with the original images, we really can’t take this story too much further 🙁
youcantryreachingme:
“I think without the photographer coming forward with the original images, we really can’t take this story too much further”
I agree. There’s too much room for doubt here, not only with with this photo but also with its “back story” and the way it was originally released.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that you are right about unmistakable proof of living thylacines turning up before 2010. That would be a great birthday present for everybody!
youcantryreachingme:
You’re absolutely right. The reasoning on both our parts leads to nothing, really, except to shake up my former conclusion that the photograph is genuine. Thinking hard about it, I’m tending more towards a hoax.
I am convinced that the animal in the photograph- whatever it may be- is alive. It’s difficult to explain, but everything about it, skin, fur, colour, etc, tells me that it is a live beast and not a mount or a computer generation. This is an instinctual conclusion on my part so it doesn’t hold up much to logic and reason.
We really need to see the original photograph and the photos on either side of it. It might help to see the site in situ but since that can’t be achieved, I’d settle for someone trying to identify the vegetation. Verifying that this is, indeed, Tasmania would be the first step towards establishing authenticity.
I’ll stand by what I said when the difference between the stripes on the beast and the stripes on known specimens of Thylacines isn’t really an issue for me. Within five or so generations it’s possible to breed a stripe-less zebra. Any remaining populations of Tassie tigers would be very small and extremely inbreed, making the incidents of mutations very high indeed. It is strange that if the photograph is faked, the hoaxers did such research as to come up with a very convincing photograph- eyewitness accounts of the gait, showing enough of the beast to look convincing but not enough to make identification of any sort- that they made such an elementary mistake as to get the stripes wrong. Despite my vague interest in the tigers I didn’t know for a long time about their strange way of moving.
I’ve read very convincing arguments about thylacines being able to climb- I’ll try to find the addresses for you later on this week, but I think I’ve only read the one printed article- and for the life of me I can’t remember where is was from and I can tell you right now that I’ll never find it.
While the thylacine bone structure is superficially similar to that of a dog (apart from the hips and tail) I don’t think you could really mistake the two.
Mainland sightings are interesting in of themselves, but I would like to say that I have read an interesting old essay on a creature called a ‘yarra’. I’ve not read anything since other than odd mentions, but according to the essay, the yarra was an arboreal predator with a distinct liking for chicken. It was often shot by settlers as it broke into chook pens and was described as cat-like, reddish fur with wide bands of white around its body. Mention was often made of its spectacular dentation. Marsupial teeth are striking and very prominent. If there is an unknown marsupial predator on the mainland, it might be only superficially similar to a thylacine. That said, it’s worth considering a tiger nicknamed ‘Old Hairy’, found in a limestone hole in the Nullarbor Plains. It’s been carbon-dated at 4 600 years old, but according to The Fortean Times #213 certain of the senior management at the Melbourne Museum dispute this and argue for one years old. The article goes on to further state that there are reports of live sightings around the area, but then, one must take anything The Fortean Times says with a considerable grain of salt.
Four feet long isn’t very large, but you’re right, six feet is.
I wasn’t aware of the thylacine being sighted in New Guinea, but then I haven’t read any of the Irwin threads. Could you provide me with any links to that information?
Some 1997 articles on Indonesian thylacines are available as linked, but I think I must have remembered their mention on the Irwin threads incorrectly. That is – I can’t find them mentioned on the Irwin Cryptomundo threads – or for that matter, on any other Cryptomundo threads; sorry.
I am very interested in your Fortean Times reference. I hope I can access that online – because I have always struggled to believe that an eyeball and tongue could survive for over 4000 years – even if in an ideal cave environment.
I have heard of a skeleton found in north-west Western Australia originally dated at 80 years before present, subsequently dated at several thousand years old with the explanation that the sample was contaminated by another animal’s bones when the first date was calculated. However, I have also heard that the contaminating bones were found *under* the thylacine. Information on this specimen is notoriously hard to find – online at least.
I didn’t realise the Thylacine Hole specimen was nicknamed “Old Hairy”.
I’m fairly sure the Times is accurate in reporting sightings near Thylacine Hole – as long as you count anywhere along the southern edges of Western Australia and South Australia as “near”.
Robert Paddle in his book quotes one scientist who inspected the remains of a thylacine killed in the Blue Mountains (New South Wales) in the 1800s. The scientist also mentioned two specimens from South Australia. Aboriginal people from a particular area of South Australia well knew of the thylacine in the early 1800s, although they hadn’t sighted it for close to 100 years at that time. South Australian thylacines were also mentioned in passing in local South Australian newspapers in the 1800s. All of these reports are in the book “The Last Tasmanian Tiger”.
All of a sudden, Old Hairy’s being less than 100 years old is entirely possible. The 1973 South Australian Doyle footage is entirely possible. The Kevin Cameron specimen may well have been from Western Australia (I’m still not sure of the final verdict in that case). The modern day South Australian and Western Australian sightings still retain plausibility.
Even in the commentaries here on Cryptomundo, one reader from Western Australia brought new sighting information from a few years back, to light.
Back to the Chaotika thylacine – I agree it looks very lifelike. I honestly don’t know what to make of it and your point is quite valid that they would have gone to the trouble (assuming a hoax) to create an excellent image and plausible story, only to miss the boat regarding stripes.
Hmmm. Here’s hoping they share a little more info! 🙂
Crystalwren:
Instead of listing here specific sites, of which there are many, I’ll just suggest that you google “Tasmanian tiger, New Guinea” & get a lot of links with lots of information.
Also check out the Thylacine section here from the list over to the right. There are lots of good reads and many contain links for further investigation.
One of the things that is known about the thylacine is that it is extremely resilient to inbreeding. This could very well be the reason it has managed to cling to survival against all odds, presuming it has of course.
YourPTR! – on what do you base that? I have read a quote from Nick Mooney saying something similar, but I’m wondering where the idea comes from?
Just something I have read several places online. Probably extremely wasn’t the right word, more “unusually resilient to inbreeding” would be more appropriate. Anyway I have no reason to disbelieve this. I will have a look see if I can dig the info up.
I love comment 4 from Crystalwren:
“The base of the tail looks very thick for a placental mammal”
Yeah, that’s because you are looking at its head. You can’t even see the tail in the picture.
This is a domestic dog such as a Pinscher with some dye sprayed on it. It looks stationary (no motion blur). It probably took quite a lot of shots to obscure it’s head sufficiently. Nice cover story, but it’s a fake.
I’m open to the possibility that there may be local variants of the thylacine with stripe patterns that vary from those found in Tasmania. Regardless of that, this photo looks fake and its back story is preposterous.
Kittenz – you’ll have seen my link to Tigerman’s book in the recent “Wildlife Experts Field Cryptid Questions” thread.
If you haven’t already, have a read through that and you’ll see that the back story for Chaotika’s thylacine makes it fall squarely within normal tiger sighting description – or rather, post-sighting witness experience descriptions.
Yes, thanks, I had already read the Tigerman’s book awhile back… a good read. It’s true that this account falls “squarely within normal tiger sighting description – or rather, post-sighting witness experience descriptions” – maybe too squarely. It just seems too pat to me; it does not have the ring of authenticity about it that some of those sightings have.
kittenz wrote “maybe too squarely”.
I’m inclined to agree.
I am going to have to say fake on this one. It is easy to add a few stripes in photoshop or the darkroom, but to miss every possibly identifying feature of an animal takes some talent.
The whole story seems shaky to me. I don’t think that there is a conspiracy in Tasmania to hide the Tassie Tigers.
Dan Hill
Coast to Post – Coast to Coast AM Blog
“You didn’t see anything, understand?” – it’s not an episode of the X-Files.
After reading another hundred or so comments on this photo, I find I still feel most comfortable with my original assessment of this new photo. No head; no tail; no way to figure out what the animal is. Stripe pattern all wrong; no reason to think that the gene pool would now have the thylacine displaying widely-spaced stripes all down the entire back of the animal.
The photographer could only catch a glimpse of this animal, yet the animal in the photo is still, not a moving blur. The photographer was virtually right on top of the animal, yet could not get any sort of better photo.
Great secrecy surrounding the provenance of the photo, as well as anything at all about the photographer. A “cover” story that conveniently explains why this must be the case. No more information forthcoming.
I still arrive at my original feeling about this one. It still just isn’t “quite right.” I want to find evidence that the thylacine is out there, right now, in 2006. I just am not finding it at this time through this photo.
China
If the flash scared the critter, the first picture taken should have been of its startled face. There’s also something not right about this photo – the animal doesn’t appear to be in motion, and the shadows from the blades of grass on its back don’t look right. Combined with a questionable story and the fact that the original poster has not been back with any more information, convince me this is a fake, unfortunately.
Does this uploaded pic help?
When the link loads click the main picture to see the larger version.
2jboys – the original poster has responded to my attempts at reaching her – but there can be days between messages.
I am waiting on another response, to my request for permission to publish an update on the story.
… and my update on the Chaotika thylacine is now online – just click on my name and then the announcement.
As a professional photographer for 30 years, and an amateur naturalist all my life I would say that this is without a shadow of a doubt, a hoax. I have just checked out the image in Photoshop as well.
The duration of a camera flash (tube) is effectively instantaneous – we are talking about 1000th’s of a second… which would give a similar sized ‘mammal’ no time whatsoever to startle and mobilize! The marsupial thylacine had a brain 40% smaller than a counterpart mammal – making it allegedly much ‘mentally slower’. The flash illumination does not fall off beyond the animal indicating that the area above and below it are in the same plane. The beast, is therefore lying down. The photograph would appear to have been correctly exposed and I believe that it has been ‘darkened’ afterwards for effect.
In my humble opinion this is nothing more than a dead Red Fox, (Vulpes vulpes), suitably decorated for the occasion.
PS, wherever the subject was photographed, the fox has been introduced to Tasmania – how irresponsible can you get!
There are many Tasmanians that are of the opinion that perpetuating the myth of the Tasmanian tiger diminishes the acceptance and responsibility of having persecuted it to extinction…… it has also added to an over scepticism amongst Tasmanians that have had a generation of questionable? reported sightings with NO real physical (none? no fur, no roadkill, no carcasses, no scat nothing) or even remotely plausible photographic proof…….. this scepticism has influenced more recent issues such as foxes establishing themselves as pests in Tasmania. This due to Tasmanians being very hard to convince of their existence. The old “ill believe it when i see it with my own eyes, mentality” the reality being we definitely do have foxes and we definitely don’t have tigers, people believe we have tigers but cant be convinced we have foxes…(major environmental disaster unfolding, yet nobody believes its true)
Such a very sad state of affairs, now our only other endemic carnivorous marsupial the Tasmanian devil is facing extinction due to a rare cellularilly transmissible cancer, (DFTD) with the possibility that’s its trigger is linked to agricultural or forestry related chemical contamination, unproven but certainly very plausible. Also very embarrassing to both these industries and the government for allowing this tragedy to unfold. As long as the mythical notion of the last thylacine is kept alive the enormity of our impact on this island is diminished, to drive two endemic, incredible animals to extinction in less than 100 years is simply unforgivable, Time to take responsibility and accept the truth, its gone and we are to blame, I would like to think we have learnt a lesson but I fear we have not.
Arguably the Eastern quoll is your second endemic carnivorous marsupial… but that’s a minor point :/
I’m young, but I know enough about tassie tigers to know one when i see one. In that picture i know for a fact that it is a real tassie tiger i have compared it with some other pics of tassie tigers and its the same. i am obsessed about them and i know that it is one. do not listen to what other people think cause they are wrong it is definitely real.
Those are not stripes. They are an illusion created by the shadows of the larger stems. The fact that the smaller shadows cast on the animal by the smaller stems are exactly the same shade/tone/colour is a clear indicator.
It looks very much like a small dog with what appear to be floppy ears.
This has all the signs of a hoax. Here are a few.
(1) It’s totally absurd that the person who took the photo would be afraid to reveal his identity because he’s afraid of the police. That sounds like a lame excuse for hiding the identity of the supposed photographer, and avoiding closer scrutiny.
(2) It’s totally absurd that the police would be deliberately suppressing evidence that the tiger is alive and well — least of all because of financial interests. Tasmanians would stand to make millions and millions of dollars if the tiger is still alive.
(3) The supposed photographer called the animal a ‘striped puppy kangaroo thing.’ This suggests he had never heard of the Tassie tiger — one of the world’s most famous animals — even though he was out in the Tasmanian bush with a camera taking pictures of animals. This even more totally absurd than (1) and (2). The description is a feeble attempt to portray the photographer as innocent and honest, while also sounding like it must be a tiger: “If he doesn’t even know what a Tasmanian tiger is, then how could the photo possibly be fake?”
(4) I can’t understand what the rest of you are saying about the photo. No legs of any kind are visible. Where are the tiger’s legs??? Assuming the right hand side is the front of the animal, then it seems to have a short stump for a front right leg, and a slightly larger stump at the back right. What is this? A double-amputee tiger? Also, no head is visible. You can’t see any part of the animal’s head. HELLO!!!! Isn’t that a bit odd? I mean, if you were going to fake a picture of a tiger using some other animal, isn’t that exactly the part you’d have to leave out. Y also can’t see the tail, which is another part you’d have to leave out if, for example, your picture was actually of a platypus…
(5) The body shape, as noted by others, is exactly like that of a platypus. If this is in fact a platypus, then you would expect the faker to have real trouble making (a) the head and (b) the legs and (c) the tail look convincing, since a platypus’ heads and legs and tail are not even remotely tiger-like. Maybe that’s why the legs are TWO LITTLE STUMPS and the head and tail are INVISIBLE.
(6) As noted by others above, there’s a strange pink patch at the back right of the animal. That strange pink patch is exactly where the faker would have to mess around with the image to get rid of the platypus foot. So what we have is a stumpy, indistinct leg with a strange pink patch. Surely this is a totally obvious fake??
This seems to be a photo of a platypus, crudely patched up, cropped, and given a silly and obviously false back-story.
I always thought this could be a photo of a zebra duiker. Not to say an african antelope is running wild in Australia, but that someone photographed one and is passing it off as a Thylacine
This photo certainly is a hard one to make a call on.
It does have a genuine feel of a realistic animal to it, and if it’s a photoshop job, it’s a damn good one. The reflection of the camera flash and the contrasting shadow on the back of the creature are in perfect congruence, starkly visible, and the fur pattern seems small and fine enough to be appropriate for the small creature (which would usually not be the case if the striped pattern fur was cropped off of an image of an animal with similar stripes, such as a tiger).
However, I think I might be leaning towards the comment about the photoshopped platypus. References have been made to the odd taper of the leg as I agree, but I was also trying not to dismiss the aforementioned “padding” on the back of the leg, and also, the seemingly strange “toes” that fold under the said foot. After hearing the suggestion of the platypus photoshop, it occured to me that that padding and foot could just as easily be the webbing of a platypus (er,) foot, photoshopped so as to best look like the foot of a conventional mammal.
This is all not to mention the fact that, unless I don’t understand the process of pickling (which is very possible so don’t give me a whole lot of credit for anything I say…), there are pickled specimins of Thylacine pups at the Thylacine museum, and though they have no fur patterns left on them they are certainly not shaped anything like the subject in this photo; in fact, they most closely resemble a miniature sized version of their parents in proportion perfectly, as is much the case in most marsupial species (again, I’m no expert).
In addition I don’t know if you can find these photos of the pickled pups online directly, but I know I saw them in a video on the Thylacine by the “Animal X Natural History Unit” on Youtube, on part 8 I believe of their attempted information gathering of the Thylacine (I’m really not sure who they are…)
I’m not seeing a platypus bill for the head, the first thing I thought of was an ear, like on the other side of the head. I see two visible dog type ears. The head would be hidden between the ears probably pointing downward or lower to the ground, as puppies & young dogs tend to slink away a bit when scared. At least in my experience. Looks more dog like to me than platypus or pig. Whether its a dog, dingo or Thylacine I have no idea. I certainly hope its a Thylacine.
Hmmm… let’s see. This photo is obviously photo shopped or whatnot because of many reasons, actually. The top silhouette of the animal shines unnaturally and is faded into the stems of grass that sprouts in front. Plus, the shadow beneath the animal is too dark, no sign of ground can be seen within the shadow, which makes it obvious that the photo is just a hoax.
As for the animal:
The thylacine’s striped are skinny and close together, these, however, are quite thick and go up all the way to the neck while the thylacine’s striped only went from the tail to the mid-part of the back. And the striped aren’t light brown as portrayed in the picture above but dark brown.
As for what animal this might be… perhaps a smaller animal considering the thylacine was not this tiny, maybe a numbat, a small marsupial with stripes, could be the cause of this hoax.
Just noticed that the cubs and mother lack the white stripes that are seen in some adults, as seen here.But seem to be much darker than above posters pic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thylacine_cubs.jpg
Here is the same group of juveniles and mother one year later
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thylacines.jpg
stinks that they are in B&W, makes it very difficult to distinguish shades of coat color, but it gave me a decent reference for size in a juvenile TT. That I didn’t have before. Assuming that the photographer is not freakishly tall or freakishly short. When I saw OP’s photo, I thought, that seems rather small. But, and this is not to say I believe it is a TT, it SEEMS to be relative in size to the proven photos of TT juveniles.