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Still Waters

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A small envelope of Thylacine hairs found in a cabinet of microscope slides and other samples could lead to proof that Tasmanian tigers are still living- at least that's the hope held by the owner of the hairs, Chris Rehberg.

Chris is a photographer and amateur naturalist with a keen interest in the Tasmanian tiger, he spoke to the ABC Radio Hobart, Your Afternoon Presenter Helen Shield.

http://www.abc.net.au/radio/hobart/programs/your-afternoon/tasmanian-tigers/8468100

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Fair play to Chris Rehberg, there really needs to be some work on this. We really need to answer a lot of questions, most importantly from my point of view is the question of pigmentation. That's a big issue that needs clarity. 

On a related note a really important new photo has emerged today. It's in private hands and shows a caged female tiger with her cubs behind her. She's trying to cover them with her body and is warning the photographer off with a threat yawn. Fist thing this morning I was sure it showed the Mullin's group, mother and three cubs, captured 1924. But I'm no longer sure, it might be a later group of a mother and two cubs which arrived at the zoo in 1928, which'd coincide better with the owner's family's version of when the photo was taken. 

It's not only either a rare example of a mother with cubs, but the only one which shows a mother defending her young, or indeed any overt maternal behaviour, it's also one of the two examples I can think of a tiger photo not taken in a zoo. The animals are shown in a portable cage of some sort. This is a very important photo.

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This story has taken another twist. Turns out that the man who took the photo was the man who trapped the animal, and is the direct ancestor of the current owner, who had no idea of their family's history in this regard, nor of the significance of the photo. It's presence is now being made known to the right people and this wonderful photo is going to take its place in the history of the thylacine. 

Also its emergence sparked a bit of a debate yesterday which has led to the resolving of yet another inconsistency in the historical record* and will hopefully rectify an error in the current timeline.  

*The mystery of the three legged thylacine, noted as having both disappeared in 1924 while at the same time being present in a series of photos from 1928. Turns out there were two, obvious, but a bit more complicated than that. 

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And there's more, turns out there are a lot more photos not of the tigers, but of the man who snared it, his family, and how the capture of a thylacine and the £55 he received from it changed their lives, and the effect this change had on the family's opportunities even to this day. 

It's important to recall that although we in the 21stC whince at the thought of this, back then it changed the fortunes of a family. What would you have done? 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/27/2017 at 9:16 PM, oldrover said:

On a related note a really important new photo has emerged today. It's in private hands and shows a caged female tiger with her cubs behind her. She's trying to cover them with her body and is warning the photographer off with a threat yawn. Fist thing this morning I was sure it showed the Mullin's group, mother and three cubs, captured 1924. But I'm no longer sure, it might be a later group of a mother and two cubs which arrived at the zoo in 1928, which'd coincide better with the owner's family's version of when the photo was taken. 

It's not only either a rare example of a mother with cubs, but the only one which shows a mother defending her young, or indeed any overt maternal behaviour, it's also one of the two examples I can think of a tiger photo not taken in a zoo. The animals are shown in a portable cage of some sort. This is a very important photo.

I've just found an article about that photo -

Quote

Unseen Tasmanian tiger photo and hair renews interest in thylacine

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-02/new-photo-and-hairs-from-tasmanian-tiger-sparks-interest/8488970

 

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53 minutes ago, Still Waters said:

I've just found an article about that photo -

Yeah, it's been taken up in a few places. I thought it'd generate more interest than it did. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I do have reservations about thus, but I can't fault him for sharing his results. All credit to him. 

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Sadly, I've pretty much given up hope that any still exist.

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5 hours ago, Myles said:

Sadly, I've pretty much given up hope that any still exist.

I gave up hope years ago. But to be honest mine is a minority opinion, and I'm not talking about among dreamers either. 

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Would be pretty amazing if they found one.

Check out the flick The Hunter with Willem Dafoe

 

Edited by EllJay
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7 minutes ago, EllJay said:

Would be pretty amazing if they found one.

Check out the flick The Hunter with Willem Dafoe

 

It's an excellent film in my opiniin, book wasn't so good. The thylacine is really badly done though. But then it's not that integral to the story. 

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1 minute ago, oldrover said:

It's an excellent film in my opiniin, book wasn't so good. The thylacine is really badly done though. But then it's not that integral to the story. 

I havent read the book. I cant remeber exactly the CGI of it, but it was a while since I saw it.

It's interesting though that some skeptics of this animals potential survival are so fierce..I mean, it's not like we are talking about Bigfoot or aliens, its an animal that was provably alive not long ago. But they are like rabid b@strads; `NO, it can not have survived, end of story!!´

Skeptics be skeptics.... 

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Just now, EllJay said:

I havent read the book. I cant remeber exactly the CGI of it, but it was a while since I saw it.

It's interesting though that some skeptics of this animals potential survival are so fierce..I mean, it's not like we are talking about Bigfoot or aliens, its an animal that was provably alive not long ago. But they are like rabid b@strads; `NO, it can not have survived, end of story!!´

Skeptics be skeptics.... 

A lot of people regard me in that light. Truth is I've just read the evidence and come to a reasonable conclusion. I'm sure they're extinct. 

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12 minutes ago, oldrover said:

A lot of people regard me in that light. Truth is I've just read the evidence and come to a reasonable conclusion. I'm sure they're extinct. 

I also use to be very sure of some particularly things (in a totally different field), but had experiences that totally flipped that around. I'm not saying I'm sure this animal is alive, but I leave a window open for it, and time will tell,

Here is a few other animals they knew for sure were extinct;

23 Extinct Animals Found Alive Today

Edited by EllJay
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2 minutes ago, EllJay said:

I also use to be very sure of some particularly things (in a totally different field), but had experiences that totally flipped that around. I'm not saying I'm sure this animal is alive, but I sure leave a window open for it, and time will tell,

Here is a few other animals they knew for sure were extinct;

23 Extinct Animals Found Alive Today

I've seen that list so many times in the past I'm afraid and it isn't a list of 23 animals that were thought extinct at all. It's an internet sham.

Anyway, there are no cases of an apex predator the size of, and as distinct as a thylacine having been missing for thus length of time, and definitely not with thus many people looking for it the whole time. 

Aside from the clearest and most reluable evidence you could want showing an almost complete popukation cradh in the firt decade of the 20thC, and a complete lackmof evidence for the last 79 years I'm not sure hiw much more certain you could be. 

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7 minutes ago, oldrover said:

I've seen that list so many times in the past I'm afraid and it isn't a list of 23 animals that were thought extinct at all. It's an internet sham.

Anyway, there are no cases of an apex predator the size of, and as distinct as a thylacine having been missing for thus length of time, and definitely not with thus many people looking for it the whole time. 

 

I see - but which of those 23 animals were/weren't thought to be extinct (or never were, or what?...)

I dont doubt you have researched the Tasmanian Tiger more than I have, and are sure of your conclusions, but I have stopped "closing windows" since a while back...

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4 minutes ago, EllJay said:

I see - but which of those 23 animals were/weren't thought to be extinct (or never were, or what?...)

I dont doubt you have researched the Tasmanian Tiger more than I have, and are sure of your conclusions, but I have stopped "closing windows" since a while back...

As I said earlier, although I'm convinced, there are an awful lot of others who studied longer, harder and have many more resources at their dispossl than I, and they think differently. I do appreciate your point.

As to the list, the Cuban solendon was thiught extinct, the Monito del monte on the other hand wssn't. What happened there was closer examination revealed it to be an Australedelphid, the group that makes up the Australuan marsupials, rather than being  Didelphid which the rest of the living South (plus the one species found in N America) American marsupials are. It was a taxonomic thing, they were never missing. Same with the Javan elephant, they are extinct on Java, it's just that again taxanomic study has revealed thet're closely related/ancestral to the Bornean elephant, which were also never misskng or undetected. Neither was the coelacanth, or the narwhal, which was never though extinct. And, the ivory billed woodpecker is extinct. But the tahake is legit. That's as far as I got.

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21 minutes ago, oldrover said:

 

As to the list, the Cuban solendon was thiught extinct, the Monito del monte on the other hand wssn't. What happened there was closer examination revealed it to be an Australedelphid, the group that makes up the Australuan marsupials, rather than being  Didelphid which the rest of the living South (plus the one species found in N America) American marsupials are. It was a taxonomic thing, they were never missing. Same with the Javan elephant, they are extinct on Java, it's just that again taxanomic study has revealed thet're closely related/ancestral to the Bornean elephant, which were also never misskng or undetected. Neither was the coelacanth, or the narwhal, which was never though extinct. And, the ivory billed woodpecker is extinct. But the tahake is legit. That's as far as I got.

That still leaves us with these rather sizeable animals (no insects directly), that were thought to be extinct, or "fantasy animals":

  • Pygmy Tarsier
  • Arakan Forest Turtle
  • Giant Squid
  • Bermuda petrel
  • Chacoan peccary
  • Gilbert's potoroo
  • La Gomera giant lizard
  • Madagascan serpent eagle

 

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10 minutes ago, EllJay said:

That still leaves us with these rather sizeable animals (no insects directly), that were thought to be extinct, or "fantasy animals":

  • Pygmy Tarsier
  • Arakan Forest Turtle
  • Giant Squid
  • Bermuda petrel
  • Chacoan peccary
  • Gilbert's potoroo
  • La Gomera giant lizard
  • Madagascan serpent eagle

 

 

Pygmy Tarsier appears to stand up, the Arakan forest turtle, doesn't. Firstly it's not likely to be recognised by any non specialist, and was known in food and traditional medicine markets, meaning it was seen by people, just not those who recognised as being significant in Western terms. Giant squid have never been thought extinct, and don't qualify as fantasy animas in my opinion unless you accept the links some make between them and the Kraken. 

Bermuda petrel, what do you think? I'm on the fence with this one. Chacoan peccary is another taxonomic revision, not a discovery as such, as it happens it was very popular prior to its 'discovery' in the US hat trade.  

Gilbert's potaroo, yes rediscovered, but really distinctive. I think the night parrot would be better, and no mention of Leadbeater's possum is another and, I think, a lot more distinctive. La Gomera giant lizard is another rediscovery. The Madagascan serpent eagle is a large bird missing for about fifty years, and is quite a distinctive rediscovery as far as I know. 

Of the only  large animals on that list,  neither the peccary and the squid qualify as a discovery of an unknown or previously extinct species. The lizard, the potaroo, and the tarsier are rediscoveries, but they're small, extremely similar to other species, and in those terms not very distinctive. The petrel, I'm not sure about, but the eagle, yes that is a large rediscovered animal. So it seems at a pretty quick skim through I admit, that there is only one large animal on that list that qualifies. 

Plus, with the exception of the eagle and the squid, all feed on small and crucially abundant food sources. None exploit an environment in the way that for example, a thylacine, would necessarily have to. 

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In the case of the thylacine, to find a parallel, you'd need to find an instance of a relatively large bodied (and unmistakable if you had a body) apex predator, confined in a small area, under intense scrutiny. Without betraying a positive (i.e. one that supported rather than refuted its existence) associated effect on its prey and other animals in its ecosystem. With a way in which numbers were kept incredibly small, and yet large enough to sustain enough genetic diversity to be able to withstand extreme in breeding and disease resistance. 

A population where numbers were kept small enough to remain undetected, yet still maintain a viable population for finding mates, and one which refused to repopulate it's key habitat. If we can find one of those, then we'd have a precedent for the survival of something like a thylacine.  

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