Pleistocene, Henschke's Quarry Cave Deposit, Australia
Thylacine - Thylacinus -- 20mm tooth with one root. This fossil is probably the only example we have ever had of an animal that has been observed alive in modern times. Thylacines ("Tasmanian Tigers") were once common marsupial carnivores of the Australian outback that ranged all the way back to at least the Miocene. In just a few decades, modern settlers hunted this unique animal to extinction, the last one having died in the 1920's. They were very unusual in their amazing similarity to placental dogs -- a classic example of convergent evolution -- despite being marsupials! The animal pictured at left was one of the last of his kind and died in the Hobart Zoo in 1928. This tooth is the only fossil of a thylacine we have ever seen and, as such, is just staggeringly rare.
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