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Dr. Stephen Wroe, a scientist affiliated with both the University of Sydney and Australian Museum, recently discovered the remains of the smallest Tasmanian tiger ever found.
The animal, which is believed to have lived approximately 15 million years ago, was the size of a small cat and weighed only about 2.5 pounds.
Tasmanian tigers, members of one of 13 known species belonging to a family of carnivorous marsupials, lived from about 25 million years ago until 1936, which is when a Tasmanian tiger named Benjamin died at the Hobart Zoo.
The largest member of the family, an animal similar in appearance to the one discovered by Dr. Wroe but comparable in size to a Rottweiler, lived approximately eight million years ago.
"It would have been a formidable predator — a committed meat eater with powerfully built jaws," said Dr. Wroe.
Scientists believed for some time that large predatory mammals comparable to lions, tigers and wolves never existed in Australia, but recent discoveries at fossil sites throughout the country have shown that there was a great diversity of life that included such animals before aridification — the conversion of huge inland rainforests into deserts — occurred millions of years ago.
"It heightens the sense of loss," said Dr. Wroe. "It's now clear that the Tasmanian tiger wasn't just a singular oddity. It was the last gasp of a very diverse family of animals that obviously occupied a whole range of niches in Australia."
© 2002 Animal News Center, Inc
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