Fig. 5.1.

A recently extinct carnivorous marsupial. This is an impression of ‘Benjamin’: the last Tasmanian Tiger or Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) in captivity. The work is adapted courtesy of a still from Australian naturalist David Fleay’s video footage taken of the animal at Hobart Zoo in 1933. During the shoot, Benjamin bit Fleay on the backside. Evidently, the caged animal gave two threatening ‘yawns’, like the one displayed in this image, before sneaking around behind the photographer’s curtain and biting him deeply on the buttocks. Fleay’s resulting footage contained the last haunting images of this iconic mammal, at the time the largest of the carnivorous marsupials, on the verge of extinction. Benjamin died in captivity, left exposed to the elements on a cold winter’s night in 1936. In the 1940s, Fleay attempted to capture a live wild Thylacine in the Tasmanian wilderness. He succeeded, sighting the captured animal from the next rise, but as he approached the animal escaped the trap. Shortly after, the species is believed to have become extinct in the wild. Source: Andrew Baker.