HOME | DD
technicallyaloon — Convergent Evolution
by-nc-nd
Published: 2010-06-11 00:55:29 +0000 UTC; Views: 1228; Favourites: 15; Downloads: 0
Redirect to original
Description
A comparison of two similar animals: the gray wolf (Canis lupus) and thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus). The gray wolf is a placental carnivore from Eurasia and North America, while the thylacine is a marsupial predator that previously inhabited Tasmania and the Australian mainland. Both are apex predators in their respective ecosystems. The thylacine was wiped out in Australia due to competition with introduced omnivorous dingoes and in Tasmania via direct extermination by humans, a result of a false belief that the predators hunted human livestock.Related content
Comments: 9
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
1. The convergence stops with the skull. The body and movements of a thylacine seem to have been more similar to that of a cat, than a dog.
2. The dingo is mostly blamed for the demise of the thylacine on the mainland, but those researchers that are actually credible came all to the conlusion that thylacines were already under stress due to humans.
3. There is evidence that thylacines killed livestock, but not in such high numbers as dogs did.
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
true and don't forget that the thylacine was a marsupial wich means it would moslty lose in a fight with the dingo wich ate the same and eventually made the thylacine extinct on the mainland
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Well if you mean in a fight one on one the thylacine, at least a male one as they were apparently much bigger than the females, might have had the advantage.
Also the evidence for the dingo leading the thylacine to extinction is not as good as often claimed, especially not when its appearance is also stated to be connected to the dissapearance of the tasmanian devil and hen.
Funny fact: an earlier thesis actually stated that the thylacine drove the dingo to extinction on Tasmania.
However at the time the dingo/dog was introduced human population in Australia was also rising and new tools were introduced and the landscape modified more. All things that never reached Tasmania.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thanks for the corrections. Some of this stuff I was unaware of; I really shouldn't have written it just from memory haha.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
It's a common mistake. At least you didn't translate "Thylacinus cynocephalus" as "marsupial wolf with a dog's head", that would have been shameful.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0