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What colour are Thylacines?
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oldroverOffline
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PostPosted: 06-05-2012 22:09    Post subject: What colour are Thylacines? Reply with quote
Came across discussion on an Australian zoo website, http://www.zoochat.com/2/thylacine-living-zoo-8872/index4.html
when one of the posters dropped the little bombshell;

Quote:
Colour- many reports(not all I'll admit) refer to a 'fawn' or 'brown' animal with darker stripes. Actually, the Thylacine was a dark grizzled GREY colour with darker(almost black) stripes. Look at any skin that hasn't been exposed to light for years as have the mounted specimens, and you'll notice the difference. Alison Reid who was the daughter of the curator of the last Hobart Zoo, from memory of them at the zoo, she described their fur as the 'colour of a rabbit's' which is pretty accurate.


I thought that this must be wrong because I was sure I've seen too many contemporary paintings of the animal which show it as fawn coloured. I searched about for paintings that dated from the time when the animal was confirmed to exist, and found that this didn't resolve it. I've given links which I think illustrate this.

Indeterminate

http://whyfiles.org/224presumed_extinct/images/tiger_drawing.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thylacine_by_John_Lewin.jpg

Grey

http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/7900000/Thylacine-thylacine-7908648-450-355.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thylacinus_cynocephalus_(Gould).jpg

http://www.utas.edu.au/library/exhibitions/thylacine/images/cuvier_lg.jpg

Brown

http://rlv.zcache.com/lydekker_thylacine_tasmanian_tiger_portfolio_poster-r0f032927271d4f48a632520f6100822b_625_210.jpg

http://rlv.zcache.com/lydekker_thylacine_tasmanian_tiger_portfolio_poster-r0f032927271d4f48a632520f6100822b_625_210.jpg

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/assets/images/article/journal/8442/Thylacine-wombat.jpg

Is this most basic element of their appearance yet another 'fact' that turns out to be nothing more than an illustration of how little we ever knew about them?
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Anome_Offline
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PostPosted: 06-05-2012 22:25    Post subject: Reply with quote
Somewhere, I have a photograph of the thylacine skin at the National Museum of Australia. I can't, off the top of my head, remember what colour it is, exactly. I'll see if I can find it, but I seem to recall the lighting was weird.
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oldroverOffline
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PostPosted: 07-05-2012 17:25    Post subject: Reply with quote
Trouble is it'd be a least 70 years old, unless of course it's been very well handled.
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KondoruOffline
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PostPosted: 07-05-2012 17:31    Post subject: Reply with quote
The one in the NH is fawn with brown stripes
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oldroverOffline
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PostPosted: 07-05-2012 17:43    Post subject: Reply with quote
Yes but so are most of the other taxidermies there, including the Yapok next to it. And here's a live one;

http://static.flickr.com/48/107188791_47c2b052e7.jpg

Point is we can't tell from old faded specimens.

More on the London specimen, and its criminally piss poor state of repair.

http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1283878.html
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MythopoeikaOffline
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PostPosted: 07-05-2012 18:08    Post subject: Reply with quote
From that last link:

Quote:
He languishes, unwanted and neglected, in no less an august establishment than the Natural History Museum in London. WHo no longer maintain a taxidermy department and have no intentions of doing anything to preserve the taxidermy specimens they currently have, allowing them to deteriorate and decay.


Scandalous.
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oldroverOffline
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PostPosted: 07-05-2012 18:19    Post subject: Reply with quote
It is, but then it's one shit taxidermy anyway. Compare that bland, moon faced, dog wannabee with the otherworldly animal on the old films.

Best thing I'd say is to take down the skin and try and preserve it as best as possible. Possibly to examine it and see what colour it would have been.
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MythopoeikaOffline
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PostPosted: 07-05-2012 18:23    Post subject: Reply with quote
I agree.

It's so faded that the stripes are practically gone.
Not good at all.
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oldroverOffline
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PostPosted: 07-05-2012 18:29    Post subject: Reply with quote
I've been along to see it a few times, in fact every time I'm in London. It is really bloody tatty.

The Yapok I mentioned earlier though must win wonkiest stuffed animal of all time though, it's worth a visit on its own.

That article explains a lot I wondered why a big institution like that would let things go to that extent.
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ramonmercadoOffline
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PostPosted: 07-05-2012 18:50    Post subject: Reply with quote
Mythopoeika wrote:
From that last link:

Quote:
He languishes, unwanted and neglected, in no less an august establishment than the Natural History Museum in London. WHo no longer maintain a taxidermy department and have no intentions of doing anything to preserve the taxidermy specimens they currently have, allowing them to deteriorate and decay.


Scandalous.


The NHM in Dublin has a top class taxidermy unit, they could send it there for repairs or donate it to Dublin.
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KondoruOffline
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PostPosted: 07-05-2012 19:49    Post subject: Reply with quote
Most modern naturalists I have met seem to have little interest in bits and pieces, its part of an outdated and outmoded system that went out with egg collecting as far as they are concerned.

And never mind cryptozoology....
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oldroverOffline
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PostPosted: 07-05-2012 21:24    Post subject: Reply with quote
Very fair point.
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DougalLongfootOffline
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PostPosted: 09-05-2012 10:07    Post subject: Reply with quote
oldrover wrote:
Trouble is it'd be a least 70 years old, unless of course it's been very well handled.


I think you'll find it's the same age, no matter how well or poorly it's been handled.
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Anome_Offline
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PostPosted: 09-05-2012 23:34    Post subject: Reply with quote
All the information I've seen suggests they ranged from fawn to reddish brown. Presumably this was taken from descriptions made before they became extinct.
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oldroverOffline
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PostPosted: 10-05-2012 18:41    Post subject: Reply with quote
Quote:
I think you'll find it's the same age, no matter how well or poorly it's been handled.


How true.


Quote:
All the information I've seen suggests they ranged from fawn to reddish brown. Presumably this was taken from descriptions made before they became extinct


That's what I'd always thought, until this fella mentions that Alison Reid remembers them as being grey. Plus checking the old prints seems to back this up, to an extent, at least 50% of the time.

Also I notice I've jumbled the original links up.
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