‘BLISSFULLY UINAWARE’

Last-Known Tasmanian Tiger Remains Found in Australian Museum's Cupboard

The whereabouts of the remains of the last-known Tasmanian Tiger, thought lost for more than 85 years, has finally been solved.

A mystery lasting more than 85 years has been solved after the discovery of the remains of the last known Tasmanian tiger—which were found in an unassuming cupboard. The remnants of the now-extinct Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, were thought lost forever until their discovery in a cupboard at a Tasmanian museum, researchers said, solving one of the Australian state’s “most enduring zoological mysteries.” The tiger died in 1936 but its skin and skeleton were nowhere to be found. Researcher Robert Peddle eventually tracked it down, finding it in a cupboard of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery’s education office. The skeleton had been used as a “traveling exhibit” with staff “blissfully unaware they had been handling the last of the species,” according to ABC News. Museum curator of vertebrate zoology Kathryn Medlock blamed “a failure to correctly catalog and record the specimen,” which “resulted in its skin being taken around the country.” Both the skin and skeleton are now stored in the museum's zoological section.