Larry Jones has been photographing street art for quite a few years. He inquired if we knew anything about thylacines. To be honest we never heard the word. Have you?

We discovered the thylacine is an extinct animal that was the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times. It was known as the Tasmanian tiger and the Tasmanian wolf. Now if you grew up on Loony Tunes like us that conjures up the Tasmanian Devil, a cartoon character we could not get enough of yet never gave a thought to outside the animation context.

It ends up they were brethren marsupials. Tasmanian devils still exist on the Island of Tasmania,a state of Australia and are the largest marsupials in existence. The thylacine held that distinction before it became extinct in 1936. It too lived in Tasmania, continental Australia and in New Guinea. It looked like a dog with a stiff tail like the kangaroo and transverse strips across its back that conjured up the image of a tiger, hence the nickname Tasmanian tiger.

See what a thylacine looks like and learn more about marsupials at Thylacine Wikipedia.

The thylacines that appeared on the streets of San Francisco from 2006 to 2010 bear no resemblance to the extinct animal. Instead they depict children and other creatures who are either looking for or lamenting the loss of their thylacines. The eyes as the common denominator between the figures depicted. The Thylacine was a shy and secretive animal so perhaps these creatures looked after them in the forest. Like the extinct animal, these thylacines seem to have lived in a confined area and become extinct. Our burning question is … Are these thylacines extinct or just gun shy and gone into hiding or living somewhere else? Have you seen any sightings?

All photos in this article courtesy of photographer Larry Jones.

About Larry Jones

Larry Jones has multiple photographic interests. See his street art photos and other subject matter. Follow him on Flicker
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