“We provide quantitative support to the suspicions of earlier researchers that the thylacine was not a pursuit predator,” said Borja Figueirido, a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University and the paper’s lead author. That hunting approach separates thylacines from wolves and other large canid, or dog-like, species that hunt in packs and generally pursue their quarry over some distance. In a paper published in Biology Letters, the researchers have shown that the extinct thylacine was a solitary, ambush-style predator. So what was it? By studying bones of thylacines and 31 other mammals, researchers at Brown University have the answer: The thylacine was a Tasmanian tiger - more cat than dog, although clearly a marsupial. No wonder the thylacine - the enigmatic, iconic creature of Australia and Tasmania - was the object of so much confusion, alternately called the “marsupial wolf” and the “Tasmanian tiger.” It carried its young in a pouch, like a kangaroo. Its head and body looked like a dog, yet its striped coat was cat-like.
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