looking at photographs of now-extinct animals fucks me up supremely. like man... this thing must’ve died out less than 300 years ago for us to have pictures of it......... in the grand scheme of things, that’s incredibly recent. and when the last one remained, we couldn’t do anything about it, so we just did the best we could to document it. to make sure the people of the future knew about it, and could maybe prevent further extinctions............. man...................................
Originally shot by Dr. Randle Stewart, an Australian psychiatrist, whilst on honeymoon in Tasmania, these 18 seconds of combined footage show the last captive thylacine in the world.
Commonly referred to as “Benjamin”, the individual lived at the now-abandoned Beaumaris Zoo from the early 1930s to his death in September of 1936, incidentally the same year thylacines were granted official protection by the Australian government.
The footage, shot in 1931, had been considered lost since the late 1970s.
Thylacine, and several extinct species of Tasmanian plants- Ozothamnus selaginoides, Deyeuxia lawrencei, Levenhookia dubia, and others moribund by climate change and habitat loss.