By Tim Binnall
A pair of Australian researchers are casting doubt upon a series of claims surrounding the last-known Tasmanian Tiger which perished in captivity back in 1936. The odd academic dispute reportedly began last year when Robert Paddle and Kathryn Medlock published a paper wherein they put forward a new version of events surrounding the proverbial final thylacine. Contrary to the popular story wherein the last Tasmanian Tiger was a male named Benjamin, the duo argued that it was actually an older female version of the creature that perished due to neglect. The upending of the iconic tale caught the attention of researchers Gareth Linnard and Stephen Sleightholme, who have now called their counterparts' assertions into question with a new paper.
Calling their work "an attempt to resolve up to a century of contradictory information and misunderstanding," Linnard and Sleightholme traced the tale of the last Tasmanian Tiger back to a family, known as the Delphins, who managed to capture a male and female thylacine in the summer of 1930 and subsequently put them on display on their property for astounded visitors to see. A few months later only the male survived and, according to records obtained by the researchers, it was subsequently sold to the Beaumaris Zoo where it became Benjamin, the legendary last Tasmanian Tiger. As such, the duo posit that the Delphins' thylacine is "the only verifiable contender for being the last captive specimen."
The researchers also take issue with Paddle and Medlock's claim that the last thylacine died after it had been locked out of its habitat and then succumbed to cold weather. On the contrary, Linnard and Sleightholme vigorously argue that such a scenario is simply unfathomable as the creature "was most certainly not the casually disregarded animal of popular modern myth. Instead, it was the most valuable animal at the zoo" and, as such, the facility would have taken great care to ensure its survival. As of yet, Paddle and Medlock have not responded to the new research that disputes their findings, though one imagines that they do not agree with their counterparts' conclusions and that the debate over the details surrounding the last-known thylacine will continue to simmer.