Thylacoleo carnifex ruled Australia until 30,000 years ago

May 10, 2009 09:20 GMT  ·  By
An artist's depiction of the Australian marsupial lion is seen in the foreground. the background is a picture of the cave painting that led to the model
   An artist's depiction of the Australian marsupial lion is seen in the foreground. the background is a picture of the cave painting that led to the model

By 30 millennia ago, all of the big land predators in Australia had disappeared without a trace, but archaeological evidence has over the years revealed some interesting insight into what type of animals lived on the Southern continent before their extinction. One of the most peculiar was the marsupial lion, a leopard-sized beast, whose remains were very puzzling to anthropologists at first. Now, newly discovered cave paintings give researchers clues at how the animal looked like on the outside, LiveScience reports.

The cave drawing was discovered in June of 2008, by naturalist and tour guide Tim Willing. He took pictures of what appeared to be a very strange animal in a cave located near the shorelines of northwestern Australia. He immediately realized that the paintings were very old, and started analyzing the photograph he had taken in minute details. Tasmania-based anthropologist Kim Akerman, upon close examination of the picture, concluded without a doubt that it represented the marsupial lion, whose remains had been found, and that this was indeed how the animal must have looked like.

 

According to the researchers, the beast has all of the traits that one would expect to find in an ancestor of modern large felines. It exhibited a cat-like muzzle, very large – and seemingly very mobile – limbs, as well as heavily clawed front feet. These characteristics can be identified in almost all cats living today, from the average domestic cat to lions, tigers, panthers, and leopards. According to the drawing, the animal sported a striped back, similar to that of a modern tiger, had sharp, pointed ears, and carried around a tufted tail, which was long enough to ensure balance during large jumps.

 

Historians say that the first inhabitants of Australia, the Aborigines, came to the southern continent more than 40,000 years ago, and, as a result, they lived more than 10 millennia with the wild beast. The feats that they describe in their rudimentary pictures were not preserved in the remains archaeologists dig up, as, usually, the skin is the first to decompose when an animal meets its end. Another thing that makes this find so important is the fact that it's the first of which experts are sure it depicts the marsupial lion, and not just another striped marsupial predator, such as the Tasmanian “tiger”.