The Thylacine was a marsupial related to kangaroos and is also known as the marsupial wolf or marsupial tiger. Although it resembles the placental wolf, its head was longer and its legs proportionately shorter. Its similarity to wolves and dogs is an example of convergent evolution - the evolution of a body shape suited to its role and resembling unrelated animals occupying similar ecological niches.
Early European settlers in Tasmania dubbed it the marsupial wolf, kangaroo wolf, pouched wolf and native wolf, but the scientific name of thylacine is use in modern times. Early literature also...
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