This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A new study led by Flinders University has flipped the historical narrative about Australia's thylacine, finding the native apex predator known as the "Tasmanian tiger" was significantly different from the wolves and wild dogs it was likened to before being hunted to extinction. In-depth investigations of historical thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) skull specimens indicate their jaws were probably unsuited to holding down large animals like sheep—instead, their long, deep jaws would have been able to subdue relatively small prey with powerful snapping bites.
"Our latest findings on their feeding adaptations counter the myths that drove the thylacine to extinction," says study lead Professor Vera Weisbecker, from the College of Science and Engineering at Flinders University. "Thylacines were often compared to northern hemisphere predators such as wolves, jackals and foxes from the dog family Canidae. This resemblance gave them their species name 'cynocephalus,' meaning 'dog-head.' "But thylacines were in fact more closely related to kangaroos than to dogs.
They were marsupials, whose ancestors separated from the other mammals long before the dinosaurs went extinct." In a major reinterpretation of the thylacine's biting behavior, published in Nature Communications, the research team from Flinders University and the University of Melbourne found that thylacine skulls sported a unique combination of features that did not match any known adaptations of living carnivorous mammals. The strange combination of an oversized skull, long and tall upper jaw, and mace-like widened snout sparked the researchers' curiosity and revealed the thylacine had a bite unlike any other living meat-eating mammal. Douglass Rovinsky says, "Even though the average thylacine may have weighed only half as much as the average wolf, its vastly oversized skull is about as large as a gray wolf's skull.
"But while it was big, it wasn't really shaped like the skull of a big predator. Instead, the thylacine's snout was long and slender, almost delicate—not robust like the snout of a gray wolf. It very much looks like the snout of a fox or jackal, which can be much smaller than thylacines." Researchers say this strange combination allowed thylacines to use high-impact snapping to catch small- to medium-sized prey such as rabbit-sized bandicoots.
"The longer a jaw is, the faster its tip moves when an animal bites. This increases the impact of the strike. We think that the thylacine's huge skull size allowed it to withstand these bite forces," Weisbecker says.
Strangely, while the thylacine may have been the last living mammal to sport a "big head, lethal snap" adaptation, the trait combination is common outside mammals. "Many crocodiles and predatory fishes have long, fast-snapping jaws used to catch agile prey like fish. Their jaws are often much longer and frequently sport tall, widened tips," she adds.
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