“It’s an unusual extinct animal because it was around recently enough to be captured in photography and film footage, which is really enigmatic, evocative and sad. “It was the only large marsupial carnivore that lived to the modern day – there’s nothing else like it alive in the world,” he says. John Pickrell, wildlife writer and author of new book Flames of Extinction, tells Guardian Australia the appeal may lie in the combination of the thylacine’s uniqueness and our guilt.
It’s the dubious world leader in extinction, but the thylacine seems to beguile and besot more than any other – with some this week “choking up” and declaring they’ve been “waiting for this my whole life”. Australia has lost more species of mammal than any other continent.
