A taxidermy thylacine on display at the Western Australian Museum. Its hind legs have been set mid-pace, to reveal a pendulous scrotum.

A close-up view between the thylacine's legs

Typically, taxidermists hid animal genitalia to spare the viewers' blushes, but bizarrely it's incredibly common to find that a #taxidermy #thylacine's balls are made very prominent. Here's one at @wamuseum.bsky.social.
This is particularly odd as male #thylacines had a little pouch to keep them in.

Head and shoulders of a thylacine reclining

Vienna's thylacine specimen, posed lying down with its head up, and no teeth bared

Vienna's thylacine specimen, posed lying down with its head up, and no teeth bared

Vienna's thylacine specimen, posed lying down with its head up, and no teeth bared

An absolutely stunning #thylacine at @nhmwien.bsky.social, which hasn't been posed to convey the impression that #thylacines were dangerous or threatening in the way that so many other #taxidermy specimens do. That idea was central to the false claim that they threatened #Tasmania's sheep industry.

The head and shoulders of Berlin's mounted thylacine

Berlin's mounted thylacine

One of the finest #thylacine specimens in Europe. Unlike many other #taxidermy #thylacines, this specimen has not been posed to make it look ferocious. Other specimens feed into the notion that they were dangerous pests, but this simply evokes the sadness of their #extinction. 3/5

Jack Ashby outside a sandstone building with the ABC logo on it

I spoke to ABC Radio #Hobart about #NaturesMemory & life behind the scenes at natural history #museums, inc. what gets left off display, trends in taxidermy #thylacines & links between colonial violence in #Tasmania & museum collecting. From 2.10 (24mins from the end):
www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

A snowy landscape with eucalyptus, pencil pine and a frozen tarn

A frozen mountain landscape with pencil pines

A river rushes over rapids towards a lake, with button grass and rainforest in the background

I've never been a believer that #thylacines still exist, and after 10 trips here, I've only grown more convinced they are gone.
But every now and then, the landscape screams #THYLACINE. Today's walk in the Central Highlands definitely had the strong thylacine vibes 😉

Four thylacine skulls in a museum drawer. The specimen at bottom right has a clear entry an exit wound at the front and back of the braincase

A drawer of #thylacines at the Chau Chak Wing Museum. Spot the bullet hole.

Echoes from the Museum podcasts Listen to Echoes from the Museum podcasts, a playlist curated by University of Cambridge on desktop and mobile.

The last known #thylacine died #otd in 1936, remembered as #ThreatenedSpeciesDay.
Our podcast series explores how #museums built collections of #thylacines, & the violent events surrounding their #extinction in #Tasmania.
Have a listen 🔊:
soundcloud.com/university-o...

A mummified thylacine

A dingo skeleton with soft tissue attached

And here's one of the world's most astonishing museum exhitbits: a mummified #thylacine that fell into a Western Australian cave around 4,650 years ago - its stripes are still visible. (Along with a 2,200-year-old dingo from the same cave.) The salty dry air in the cave preserved them. #thylacines

A thylacine skull at Western Australian Museum

A thylacine skull at Western Australian Museum

A drawer of thylacine bones at Western Australian Museum

These #thylacine bones look like the animal could have just died, but they're around 4,000 years old, collected from caves in Western Australia. #Thylacines went extinct in mainland Australia around 3,200 years ago, shortly after the arrival of dingoes.

Something for the weekend. #thylacines

A female (left) and male thylacine skull

A female thylacine skeleton, with a mounted thylacine foot skeleton below

#Thylacines collected by the French natural history dealer, Jules Verreaux, who spent much of the 1840s in Australia, amassing specimens for the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.
Verreaux is notorious for having robbed the grave of a Tswana warrior in Botswana to display him as taxidermy.

A yellow and white flower on red sand

A gecko on a rock, with its tongue out

3 people in canoes on a river

a seal, photographed upside-down underwater

Expect posts about biodiversity, historic literature, open science, digital collections, wildlife observations & nature adventures. Let’s connect! 🌿📚🔗 #Biodiversity #BioDivLibrary #SciArt #OpenAccess #OpenScience #iNaturalist #WomenInSTEMM #HerNaturalHistory #StripedPossums #Platypus #Thylacines 3/3

#thylacines

A pair of the marsupial predators, Thylacines, visible in a forest clearing in Australia as a small flock of cockatiels fly overhead.

Two thylacines pausing in a forest clearing in mainland Australia, before that species’ extinction on the continent left Tasmania as their sole, and final outpost. #thylacines #conservationart #paleoart #cockatiels

A sketch page full of dynamic dog poses. There's 6 total groupings.

Sketch Page of a bunch of dynamic canid poses. Top one is 2 jumping in the air. Next to it is 2 fighting over a stick. Middle is a group of 3, one rolling around on the ground. Next middle is a group of 3 yipping. Under to the left is 2 frolicking on the ground. Last bottom is one on the ground while another jumps around

My inked fantasy species Tasmanian Heelers, based off the extinct Tasmanian tiger and endangered pangolin. They have a canid body, the jaws and marsupial status of a thylacine, and mannerism like a pack animal. They're medium in size, between 35 and 55 lbs, standing average height of 2.5 feet off the ground. They hunt small prey and despite their fearsome appearance, want all the pets and cuddles and somebody to carry them when their feetsies get sore. The Tasmanian heelers are drawn with scales, pointy feet, lapping tongues, toothy grins, black eyes, expressive "dorsal" fin between the base of the tail and end of ribcage. They have 6 ears and excellent olfactory. They're always in coordinated groups like meerkats.

AYE! I inked my thylacines! Tasmanian Heelers for my fantasy adventuring family! Designed a family oriented group of canids, an all terrain ( mostly) animal with a penchant for frivolous fun and roaming scary forests with your kids!

Photos to show my process!

#furryart #art #thylacines

A pair of Tasmanian Heelers, a fantasy species based off Tasmanian Tigers and pangolins, play. One is laying down, frolicking while the other tumbled down on it.

A trio of Tasmanian Heelers, yipping and nipping. Tasmanian Heelers are medium sized canids based off of Tasmanian Tigers and pangolins. They're covered in scaled and flesh, long tongues and jaw dropping mandibles! They have 6 ears and an excellent olfactory sense.

Good evening!
Continued update! Dip pen work on my thylacines. My happy puppers playing.

#ink #drawing #fantasy #thylacines #furryart #pangolin

There's 6 different groupings of poses. The upper left hand corner is 2 thylacines jumping in play. Upper right is 2 thylacines playing with a stick. Middle left is a group of 3 at play, one on the ground, one standing nearby/over, and another wagging tail. Middle right is a group of three thylacines yipping and playing. Bottom left corner is 2 thylacines rolling on the ground/laying down. Bottom right corner is 2 thylacines, one jumping in the air, one laying down.

UPDATE!

HAPPY THYLACINES

based the poses off dogs at play

#art #furryart #thylacines #handDrawn #poses #canids #canine #dynamicposes #base #drawing #furry

old art but, dug up.
a thylacine family that was busy. #art #artwork #digitalart #original #thylacines

When devils and thylacines went extinct

When #devils and #thylacines went extinct conservationbytes.com/2018/01/17/when-devils-a...

Friday essay: on the trail of the London thylacines More than 160 thylacine specimens lie in museum collections in the UK. The sight of their bodies is a shocking reminder of loss.

Article about #thylacines #tasmaniantigers accurately captures the visceral responses to #colonialism in #museums

“The palpable shock of seeing so many thylacine bodies in trays in this and several other collections was a profound recognition of loss.”

No mystery disease required. Humans could have easily killed off #thylacines in Tasmania http://goo.gl/io8c2 #extinction