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Abstract

When Tasmania was settled by the British 200 years ago, the thylacine, a shy marsupial carnivore with a striped back and a coughing bark, existed in small numbers on the island. By 1936 the species was extinct. This article focuses on the first published image of the thylacine in the Transactions of the Linnean Society 1808, and traces its history over the following decades. It argues that the engraving is a sad embodiment of initial contact between Europeans and colonial fauna and that copies of this illustration develop the idea of an animal in need of extermination. Visual representations such as these in scientific and natural history works anticipated the
failure of colonial societies to preserve the animals encountered in new environments.

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Freeman, CJ
Journal or Publication Title:	reCollections: Journal of the National Museum of Australia
Publisher:	National Museum of Australia
ISSN:	1833-4946
Item Statistics:	View statistics for this item

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