Tasmanian Tigers

The Tasmanian Tiger, commonly known as a thylacine, was a carnivorous marsupial rather than a cat. The species was last observed in the wild some time in the 1930s, and by 1936, when the last animal in a zoo died, it was thought to be extinct. The animals were hunted to extinction in Tasmania due to a bounty placed on them by officials.

After more than a century, in 2022, researchers have made a significant advancement that may one day allow Tasmanian tigers to be brought back from the dead. Recently, the numbat's genome was decoded. The genetic makeup of numbats, an endangered marsupial, may be 95% identical to that of the extinct thylacine. Knowing one could give you enough knowledge to bring the other back to life.

Amazingly, because of technological advancements, deciphering the numbat's genome was a remarkably easy and reasonably priced process. In 2009, it cost $2.9 billion to decode the human genome. The identical thing for the numbat cost $1,000.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Infraclass: Marsupialia
Order: Dasyuromorphia
Family: †Thylacinidae
Genus: †Thylacinus
Species: †T. cynocephalus