In a cryptid sighting that I deeply wish was real, a South Australian woman thought she saw a Tasmanian tiger while she was on a bushwalk. As you might expect though, scientists have doubts. Alas.
A woman called Jessie Milde has having a stroll in the Adelaide Hills when she, her son and her sister spotted what at first appeared to be “a weird looking kangaroo”.
She told the ABC that after discounting the idea of the creature being a kangaroo or a dog, her sister though it might be a Tassie tiger. Or perhaps his cousin, the Adelaide tiger.
“That’s the closest thing that we could compare it to and then she went on to say that there had been [reports] on the Blackwood community Facebook page of people seeing some strange things in the national park,” she said.
The Tasmanian Tiger — or thylacine, if you’re feeling formal — went extinct in Tasmania back in the 1930s. But in some real Jurassic Park vibes, Luke, Chris and Liam Hemsworth are helping fund an attempt to reintroduce the wee critters.
They’ve invested in “de-extinction company” Colossal Biosciences which is partnering with Melbourne Uni to bring back the thylacine.
Surely this can only go well.
Back to the mysterious creature in South Australia though: scientists reckon it’s not actually a thylacine, especially seeing as they’ve been extinct on the mainland for thousands of years.
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Tassie wildlife biologist Nick Mooney told the ABC he reckoned the creature was a fox with mange.
Jessie Milde had told the publication she thought the critter was “bigger than a fox” and had a “completely different” tail and head shape. But Mooney pointed out some of the hallmark characteristics of a mangey fox.
“It’s lost a lot of hair off its tail I think [and] it’s got very large ears like a fox,” he said.
The hunt (in a curious animal lover way, not in a weird poacher way) remains.
Perhaps the creature was in fact SA’s very own cryptid, to go with the massive pigeon statue in Rundle Mall: the most mysterious being of all.
