Thylacines in Tasmania (New photos from 1st March 2021)

INVX

New Member
Last week there was a stir in activity relating to Thylacines still being alive in Tasmania.

Things kicked off on February 22nd with a video from Neil Waters, president of TAGOA (Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia. In the video titled "WE FOUND A THYLACINE" Neil claimed to have captured the strongest ever proof of Thylacines still surviving in Tasmania over 80 years after they were declared extinct.

WE FOUND A THYLACINE

In the video, Neil claims to have captured photos of 3 Thylacines, two parents and a baby making their way through the bush, captured by a trail cam. His confidence caused a stir in the Australian news and social media, with Facebook and Twitter coming out to either throw their support behind him or anxiously hold their opinions until he revealed the photos. The video also managed to rack up an impressive 300k views during this time.

Since the video was published Neil has made several radio interviews on the subject of these undeniable photos and defending the work of his organisations and other bushmen who have dedicated their lives to tracking down irrefutable proof of the species is still surviving to this day.

He promised that March 1st he would release the photos for all to see.

Well today Neil kept his promise and released a new video on YouTube, revealing to the world his undeniable evidence of Thylacines in the wild, see below:

THYLACINE JOEY PHOTO

This shot below is the "proof" that Neil has been shopping around for the last week:

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What Neil is claiming here is that we are seeing the rear end of a baby Thylacine, moving away from the camera in a walk/run gait, one ear at the top left and the signature straight tail behind. I'll forgive you for not seeing anything at first, its like one of those magic eye puzzles.

The issue I've had with this entire thing from the start is that during the last week Neil has taken this photo around to several "experts" (vets, dog/cat breeders) who have all confirmed with him that what they're seeing is anything but a dog or cat, leading Neil to conclude that the only other option is a Thylacine. He claims you can see the classic rear end stripes just before the tail and the foot or "hock" being raised up on the right as it steps through the scrub.

My problem here is that Neil is leading these experts to his own conclusion, rather than letting them view these images in an unbiased way. According to him, their conclusions of what it isn't confirms exactly what it is and therefore in the eyes of science and expert analysis he has finally found proof of a living Thylacine.

This morning when the images hit the internet there was a massive influx of support for Neil and his team for finally proving that these animals are still alive. Sadly the lack of critical thinking in these groups have led to some pretty toxic attitudes towards anyone that would dare show even the slightest bit of scepticism.

I had a look at the photos before watching Neils video and came to a completely different conclusion, fortunately for me there were a few others that shared my thoughts:

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Now I'm not claiming to have solved the mystery, or that my observation is any more valid than another however Occam's Razor surely has to prevail here right? The unfortunate truth about the Australian bush is that we have an absurd number of feral cats that cause massive amounts of destruction to our native flora and fauna. Tabby cats in particular are a problem and there must be hundreds, if not thousands in that area of Tasmania alone.

I dont want to sway the discussion in anyone way or another but I wanted to post here for you all to see what's happened here over the last week and to come to your own conclusions as well.

Thanks!
 
Listening to them talk about the photo, I can't really see what they are talking about. A hock, a foot, a tail? Where?

I see what looks like a cat's head, and some indeterminate blurry shapes.

You can see, as you say, what looks very like the top of the head of a tabby cat.

And then I read this.
the rear end of a baby Thylacine, moving away from the camera in a walk/run gait, one ear at the top left and the signature straight tail behind

Aha, it does indeed pop out, like that duck/rabbit illusion. And then it's hard to stop seeing it.

But yeah, cat seems to fit.
2021-02-28_22-57-20.jpg
 
Listening to them talk about the photo, I can't really see what they are talking about. A hock, a foot, a tail? Where?

I see what looks like a cat's head, and some indeterminate blurry shapes.

You can see, as you say, what looks very like the top of the head of a tabby cat.

And then I read this.


Aha, it does indeed pop out, like that duck/rabbit illusion. And then it's hard to stop seeing it.

But yeah, cat seems to fit.
2021-02-28_22-57-20.jpg

This is what they're seeing:

Screenshot_20210301-170855_Facebook.jpg

Even still if it were an animal moving in the way they describe, it doesn't rule out a Numbat (which is also striped on the rear end) a Bandicoot or any other critter that lives in the area.
 
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So where are the other two?

You can watch the video for the other 2 images. To be honest despite his claims of there being 2 parents, the other photos actually harm his claims more than help as they are obviously pictures of a Pademelon, a small Wallaby like mammal.

I didn't want to clutter the thread with those pictures as they don't hold any weight at all. The picture he was hanging his entire hopes on is the one I put in the OP.
 
I agree that the cat illusion is strong, but easily destroyed for me because of the lack of neck heading down to the left.

The arguments made in the 2nd youtube video are reasonably persuasive, if not actually convincing.

I find the contrarian who seems to be held in the highest respect less persuasive, as I really can't see a pandemelon in that photo, the proportions are all wrong:
In a statement, TMAG said Mooney had “concluded that based on the physical characteristics shown in the photos provided, the animals are very unlikely to be thylacines, and most likely Tasmanian pademelons”.
Content from External Source
-- https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ater-on-claims-tasmanian-tiger-family-spotted

Fortunately, purported evidence can only increase in quantity over time, and hopefully those most interested in such matters will be even keener to gathering more given this recent announcement.

I can happily sit on the fence.
 
image.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpeg
The larger animals have been deemed to be pademelons (looks like a small cangaroo) by some. It looks like all of these pictures may have been taken days apart?

The big thing is identifying the oval oblong in the bottom right as the footpad of the animal; it's hard to say what it would be if this was a cat.

If this is a cat's head, where is the body?
 
You can watch the video for the other 2 images. To be honest despite his claims of there being 2 parents, the other photos actually harm his claims more than help as they are obviously pictures of a Pademelon, a small Wallaby like mammal.

I didn't want to clutter the thread with those pictures as they don't hold any weight at all. The picture he was hanging his entire hopes on is the one I put in the OP.
They were taken in the same spot I see.
But what about time? what were the time stamps for each picture?
 
They were taken in the same spot I see.
But what about time? what were the time stamps for each picture?

Unfortunately there aren't time stamps because the trail cam didn't have the time or date set:

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The photos were taken one after the other as you can see from the photo counter in the bottom right. As for the time between each shot, hard to say, the daylight and shadows dont appear to change so could be anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 minutes.
 
another alleged thylacine spot a few years back. body shape is identical to the "adult" shapes we see in the new photos. he concludes the foot pad doesnt match a thylacine, but im not sure what he is seeing really. although his pademelon does have what looks to me as black foot pads

Article:
In late 2016 an image depicting an animal was released by its author, who claimed it was a thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger, a presumed extinct top level marsupial predator. The author of the photograph, who wished only to be known as Andrew, lives in North East Tasmania and it is in this region the animal was photographed on one of his game trail cameras on the 31st of march 2008.

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and just for reference: pademelon
tasmanian-pademelon-action-shot-adult-process-1835507.jpg

thylacine

th.jpg
 
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Seeing the other photos, sort of rules out cat head to me, though if all you see is the first picture in this thread it is hard NOT to see a cat head.
I am not seeing proof of a thylacine, though. IF there are living thylacines, that might be a picture of one -- that's abut as far as I can go. Nothing about it seems to be definitively a thylacine, and little about it would contradict a tylacine, always assuming there are any. But it might be a picture of some other critter from down under-er. Curious to see the pictures that are claimed to show parents and baby, if they show several in the same shot it might be possible to tell more. Or is his claim that he recognizes three different individuals, and familial relationships, in the several pictures that each show one animal?
 
Or is his claim that he recognizes three different individuals, and familial relationships, in the several pictures that each show one animal?
i assume it has to do with how the pictures are numbered (post #10), but i couldnt find the link to see the numbers on the 3rd animal.

Article:
Thylacines are also called Tasmanian tigers or marsupial wolves. Although they do resemble wolves in outward appearance, these carnivores are not related to dogs any more than they are to any placental mammal. They belong to the group of marsupials which includes Tasmanian devils and quolls.

...
Little is known about the behaviour of the thylacine, since no formal study of wild individuals had been made before their extinction in 1936. It is believed thylacines lived in small family groups.
 
I'd love it to be a thylacine, but whenever I see reports of large mystery animals, whether the Yeti, Bigfoot, or black panthers in the English countryside, I wonder: where's the shit?? When conservationists want to know if there are otters in a river, they don't hang around all day waiting for otters to appear, they search for spraints. Admittedly, some animals bury their waste, but this is usually to conceal it from natural predators (which the thylacine did not have), or from dominant co-specifics. The dominant individuals are more likely to mark their territory with it. And even without the poop, large carnivores would probably leave a scent trail which tracker dogs could smell.
 
Yeah I would love it to be true but like you say surely they could find shit or something, also its a predator so must leave carcasses.
A positive point for the possibility is that tasmania is quite rugged and not often traversed, though not as rugged as fiordland in nearby NZ where there is rumoured to be moose! How would something that large remain hidden, sure theres not many people in that region but still ... a Moose. Theres also tales of Moas but since the last confirmed one alive was like 600+ years ago, I think we can rule this out.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/120030454/i-spied-a-moose-in-the-fiordland-national-park
 
I'd love it to be a thylacine, but whenever I see reports of large mystery animals, whether the Yeti, Bigfoot, or black panthers in the English countryside, I wonder: where's the shit??
Bigfoot is clever enough to break into portajohns and restrooms at parks, obviously.

On the matter of the thylacine, what's the minimum viable population required to keep a smaller mammal like this going? I always have some difficulty with statements like "it went extinct in 1650" or whatever for an animal, when a small relic population could go undetected for a generation or two. Thylacines would be closer to 20 generations removed from extinction at this point, but it does make me wonder what number of animals you'd need to keep a tiny population left in seclusion.
 
Heres a recent 'discovery' (Though no doubt prolly known to locals)
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54894681

also one from a while back now I remember https://insider.si.edu/2013/08/olinguito/

So its definitely possible to go unnoticed even nowadays, especially if the only people looking for you is Rab C Nesbitt. Theres gotta be a lot of inbreeding though, but then again some creatures have existed solely within a tiny area <1km^2 eg some frogs, snails etc.
 
I live in Australia, and I've got to say , I'm a bit amused that this needed any debunking.

It was seen here as a bit of a joke, the guy appeared on video swilling a tinny (can of beer 4.6% alcohol) talking about the Tylacine. I mean, it wasn't believable in the slightest

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I saw a cat's head, and couldn't not see it as a cat's head for some time. But whatever it is, it's not a cat. The arrow is pointing to what I think is a right rear leg as the animal steps over a log.Screenshot_20210301-170855_Facebook.jpg
 
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Heres a recent 'discovery' (Though no doubt prolly known to locals)
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54894681

also one from a while back now I remember https://insider.si.edu/2013/08/olinguito/

So its definitely possible to go unnoticed even nowadays, especially if the only people looking for you is Rab C Nesbitt. Theres gotta be a lot of inbreeding though, but then again some creatures have existed solely within a tiny area <1km^2 eg some frogs, snails etc.
Article:
[11 November 2020]
A monkey that is new to science has been discovered in the remote forests of Myanmar.
The Popa langur, named after its home on Mount Popa, is critically endangered with numbers down to about 200 individuals.

Article:
Observed in the wild, tucked away in museum collections, and even exhibited in zoos around the world―there is one mysterious creature that has been a victim of mistaken identity for more than 100 years. A team of Smithsonian scientists, however, uncovered overlooked museum specimens of this remarkable animal, which took them on a journey from museum cabinets in Chicago to cloud forests in South America to genetics labs in Washington, D.C. The result: the olinguito (Bassaricyon neblina)―the first carnivore species to be discovered in the American continents in 35 years.

Article:
Rab C. Nesbitt is a Scottish comedy series which began in 1988. Produced by BBC Scotland, it stars Gregor Fisher as an alcoholic Glaswegian who seeks unemployment as a lifestyle choice.
 
Like most people I suspect, I looked at the photo in the OP and immediately thought "that's a tabby cat's head". But the cropped photo actually reinforces that illusion because you can't see the wider context so easily. The video shows the whole image, which makes it easier to see that there is no body in the right place to support the cat head interpretation:

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The shadow of the animal's body forms a line that at first glance enhances the illusion of a cat's neck, but you can clearly see that is is just a shadow over the twigs and leaf litter (red line). The area in the blue circle would surely be occupied by the cat's body, or at least shaded, if there was a cat sitting there.

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However I don't see that we can rule out that it is a stripy cat or kitten walking away from the camera (more likely a kitten from the tail shape). That certainly seems more likely than a thylacine.
 
Yeah so not a cat head because the cats body is missing, however the stripes on the body which may be contributing to a thylacine interpretation, look to be shadows from the overhanging reeds.
 
Would be very cool if it were a Thylacine. But the whole thing reminds me of "The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery" back in the '90's and earlier '00's. They would always announce that they had "proof" of Emelia Earheart's plane or skeleton or photos or whatever. Hype it, then release the whatever they had, and when that was debunked, ignore the debunking and move on.

He seems to be a good guy and a true believer, but he started with a hyped video on 2/22 saying he had "proof" and made the media rounds to pre-condition what we would think of the video.

The video comes out a week later and is really about 3 stills.

His "experts" are a vet and dog/cat show judges that just agree on what it's not, repeatedly, and an animal park manager, who thinks the "mom & dad" photos, as well as the night "baby" photo are probably pademelons. I didn't hear about any zoologists or biologists looking at it. The classic "I've had experts verify this", except they're not really the right experts.

It's one slightly out of focus picture, that could be a pademelon in the shadows captured from the rear at a low angle. It's one shot that allows for a lot of speculation.

Then at 6:12 of the second video he says:

"Why the hell would a baby thylocine, which I'm absolutely confident this animal is, be following around a pademelon?"

Because it's a pademelon. His "proof" that the other 2 pictures are of the mom and dad and not pademelons is that the baby IS a thylocine, therefore so are the other 2. It seems like a family of pademelons makes more sense.
 
Opening with the admission that the fist image definitely fooled me with the cat illusion...

Like the Tennessee Stud, the Thylacine was long and lean (and with lanky long legs.) The animal captured in the daylight images looks more like the Little Teapot -- short and stout.

image.jpg

Side note -- after diligent searches, I can't find any photos of living baby thylacines. Closest I can get is some slightly smaller but adult looking "juveniles." Some formaldahyded infants also appear long and lean, but it is possible that is an artifact of long preservation, I suppose, so I hate to use them to demonstrate what a baby thylacine would have looked like. The lack of pictures may be due to them staying in the pouch when small, and only spending a lot of photographable time out and about after they were pretty well grown. Or it could be that my search skills are weak. Anybody with better luck finding a photo of a living thylacine "joey," I'd like to see it.
 
Little searching turned up lots of YouTube videos by this group over the years. Here's one of the neighborhood dog, I mean Thylacine, rummaging through the trash:


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbTqgSK0sw4


Mr. Waters seems to find any blurry video or photo of a critter "proof" of a Thylacine.

I find him very unreliable and anything he shows or talks about suspect.
 
I posted this on a Thylacine Facebook group I recently joined but I'll repost here if anyone interested:

I did a bit of a deep dive on the trail cam used to capture the recent photos to see if I could learn anything about them, here's what I found:

Neil mentioned in his video that the camera had reset to factory defaults before the photos were taken. This is great because it allows us to see the exact parameters that this camera was operating under when the photos were taken.

I looked into the trail cam a bit further and found some details on the PAGOA website. On the membership page they were kind enough to post a photo of the box of the trail cam they use. This allowed me to dig a bit further.

From that I learnt that the model of camera is a Gosira, this is very basic Chinese made trail cam and it's been discontinued for a very long time from online suppliers. Fortunarely YouTube has some review videos from back in the day that have some setup tutorials.

What I learnt from those is that when this camera is set to factory settings, it defaults to "Photo" mode. This means its not capturing video at all. Only photos and only on the factory default interval. The factory default interval is 30 seconds.

I also now know that the factory default for picture quality is 5 mega pixels.

So with all of that in hand, here are some details that we can be 100% sure about when analysing Neils photos:

1. No video was captured
2. The series of photos he posted this week are all captured exactly 30 seconds apart
3. The original photo quality will be 5 mega pixels

*edit 1- adding more comments below:

Another point to I want to raise. I think the only reason Neil thinks he sees a Thylacine here is because his camera reset to factory settings. He's looking at a single frame in atleast a minute and a half of the camera recognising motion on its sensors. If this had been setup to capture multiple photos (up to 9 for this model) in a small interval (as low as 1second), or even if it had been set to Photo+Video mode (where it captures both at the same time) then the outcome would have been completely different. He probably would have just been filing this footage away in the Pademelon Videos 2021 folder. Basically I'm saying his entire theory is based on a faulty camera.

To add to what I've already said and to put things further into perspective, this camera will shoot video at 30 frames per second. So assuming the camera saw atleast 90 seconds of action here, that means that 2697 frames out of 2700 were lost. That means that due to user error we cannot see 99% of the possible data between these 3 photos. So out of a possible 2700 frames that could have confirmed exactly what were looking at, Neil got 3 and then pinned everything on 1. 1 out of 2700...
 
Article:
Waters states in the video he has handed the images over to Nick Mooney, a thylacine expert, at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG). A TMAG spokesperson said Mooney has now reviewed and assessed Mr Waters material on Tuesday afternoon, local time.

"Nick Mooney has concluded, that based on the physical characteristics shown in the photos provided by Mr Waters, the animals are very unlikely to be thylacines, and are most likely Tasmanian pademelons," TMAG told CNET. Mooney added the still images are "not so exciting."
[..]

The Tasmanian Government's Department of Parks, Water and Environment believe any sort of group would likely suffer from inbreeding, making long-term survival untenable. "Even if there did exist a few remaining individuals, it is unlikely that such a tiny population would be able to maintain a sufficient genetic diversity to allow for the viable perpetuation of the species in the long-term," it writes.

"Nobody can adequately look at a video and say that's definitely a thylacine, without some DNA evidence," says Andrew Pask, a marsupial evolutionary biologist at the University of Melbourne. "We've got to have a hair sample, a scat sample, something that can back it up."


Mr. Waters seems to find any blurry video or photo of a critter "proof" of a Thylacine.

I find him very unreliable and anything he shows or talks about suspect.
All we're relying on him for is his testimony that these are current actual pictures from a trailcam. Do you have reason to believe he can't be trusted that far?
 
The series of photos he posted this week are all captured exactly 30 seconds apart
Thanks for the useful information. I may have missed the relevant part of the video, but what was the actual sequence of photos? In the commentary he says the baby was between two adults, but I can't see the full sequence with image numbers, only the two images shown in post #10.

One thing that seems increasingly clear is that the "stripes" are just coincidentally placed shadows from the branches and leaves.

The adult animals certainly look more like pademelons to me

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Looking for pictures of pademelon joeys, one thing that strikes me is that the tail in the "thylacine" photo looks too short and stumpy - it looks more like a kitten's tail. But it could be an artifact of the movement, or the direction the tail was pointing in as the photo was taken. (The photo above is rather blurry but shows a similar illusion)

1614939912921.png
 
says Andrew Pask, a marsupial evolutionary biologist at the University of Melbourne. "We've got to have a hair sample, a scat sample, something that can back it up."

or even scale would help me. if this guy had his Labrador walk up the game trail and we can see that "yes those are gigantic pieces of grass/ferns", that would rule out a small animal like a pademelon.
 
or even scale would help me. if this guy had his Labrador walk up the game trail and we can see that "yes those are gigantic pieces of grass/ferns", that would rule out a small animal like a pademelon.
He measures the scene with a yardstick in his video.
 
He measures the scene with a yardstick in his video.
thanks. got bored after 10 mins of looking at the same pic in that video. but... does his measurement attack make any sense to you?
what's with all those little flags? can you really guestimate a length that way? and if he guesstimated the baby at 16 inches wouldnt that mean the adult photos are like 18-20 inches tops? are thylacines 20 inches long?


1. that is not where they went over the log
2. his tape measure is all crooked and curved.
3. pademelons are really long when they leap and play fight.
4. i want to know what the height of the log is.
5. watching his old cam vids hoping he would show the location, he does have a brown lab who he ALWAYS has with him. why didnt he send Jess up the path and film her. (insert frustrated swearing here)

Jess: (ps kudos to neil for giving his dog a super wonderful life! she is so lucky and must be so happy going on all these hiking and camping trips)

dog size.png



i see he also keeps talking about the "hock" (black foot pad) but that isnt what a thylacines hock looks like and is what a pademelons looks like in videos ive watched anyway -camera artifact stuff i guess.
pad2.png

this was a cute vid.. showing pic here as i screengrabbed a good ear shape and location over shoulder
ppf1.png
and same guy with short, black looking, tail due to camera movement.

ppftail.png
 
He measures the scene with a yardstick in his video.
also based on where the camera is (i say approx 10.5 feet from log) and camera height ...wouldnt a larger animal set off the photo sooner than the log? its almost like none of them were tall enough until they jumped (over the log).
 
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