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Melbourne Museum

  • Media owner Monty
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Thylocene and Pig footed Bandicoot
Another mounted Thylacine that bears little resemblance to the real animal. Very few museum specimens do.
 
What always strikes me is that virtually all museum specimens, apart from being badly mounted, are also very badly faded to this fawn colour. Preserved skins kept away from the light show it is/was actually quite a dark grey colour, with black stripes. Hence I am always rather suspicious of contemporary sightings that claim to have seen a light or yellowish brown animal with brown stripes.
 
Apart from the colour,this mount, like so many of them, bears little relation to the living animal in any other respect either. The long back legs and tail were normally held rigid, not bent, giving a level back and high rump, the body was slender not rounded, and the ears were more prominent while the muzzle was narrow and remarkably wolf-like.

I've yet to see a mount that comes really close to the real thing- a few are much better than this though, and the Adelaide Museum group are probably the most natural/best.
 
The bandicoot is another sad loss, in all probability. Does anyone think that there is a faint chance of it still surviving?
 

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