Last ever Tasmanian tiger discovered hidden away in museum’s cupboard

The body of the last ever Tasmanian tiger known to roam the Earth has been found stashed in a cupboard – despite scientists thinking it had been lost forever.

Buzzing researchers made the miraculous find in the storage space of an old museum, with the fascinating animal’s skeleton and fur still preserved.

The extinct beast once roamed the Australian island and was known for its dog-type body and leopard stripes.

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Boffins reckon their find comes 75 years after it was stored away and forgotten about following its remains touring around schools to teach kids about the creatures that once roamed the area.

It was a tragic end to an upsetting life for the last Tasmanian tiger, that was illegally captured by evil trappers and secretly sold to a zoo before it died of exposure just a few months later.

Nobody knew at the time that the animal was the last of its kind, and its death wasn’t labelled as significant.

In fact, scientists only discovered the body after a curator stumbled across an unpublished report explaining its corpse had been gifted to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

The body was eventually found in the museum’s education section after searches in the zoological department proved fruitless.

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Robert Paddle, a comparative psychologist from the Australian Catholic University, explained: "For years, many museum curators and researchers searched for its remains without success.

“No thylacine material dating from 1936 had been recorded in the zoological collection, and so it was assumed its body had been discarded.”

Whilst honorary curator Kathryn Medlock added: "The skin was carefully tanned as a flat skin by the museum's taxidermist, William Cunningham, which meant it could be easily transported and used as a demonstration specimen for school classes learning about Tasmanian marsupials.”

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