Yet reported sightings continued and even increased in the 1980s, and are still reported today.

There were reported sightings in the decades that followed, which lured multiple expeditions in Tasmania’s wilderness to search for survivors, said Darren Naish, a paleozoologist at the University of Southampton in England. The last known individual, “Benjamin,” died in captivity in 1936, leaving behind only haunting bits of film footage. Thylacine populations began declining soon after European settlers arrived on Tasmania, an island south of the Australian mainland, in 1803, winnowed by government-encouraged hunting, competition from wild dogs, habitat loss and disease. Walking past a landscape of felled trees, he described setting camera traps in the Tasmanian bush, and catching four “not ambiguous” still images of a thylacine family. 23, Waters, formerly a professional horticulturist, claimed that he’d captured footage that proved the thylacine lived. It can also cause people to genuinely miss details that might contradict their preferred hypothesis. Last week, conservation biologists on Twitter were all aflutter as rumors circulated that a creature called a thylacine, better known as a Tasmanian tiger, had been caught on camera in the Tasmanian bush. That preexisting belief makes it easier to begin seeing quarry in every shadow and rustle of brush, French adds, or in photographs that don’t offer a clear look at the animal in question. Credit: Tasmanian Archives and State Library Heritage Collections /Flickr/ CC BY-NC 2.0. Many people who go looking for such enigmatic creatures have an emotional investment in identifying them, “and are already convinced the creatures are already out there,” said Christopher French, who founded the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London, and recently retired. This tendency can lead people astray when studying photographic evidence of long unseen animals, sometimes called cryptids, especially if they already have an idea of what they’re looking for. Or more accurately, what we think we see,” Wardle said. Lastly, we are excited about how our work on the thylacine will lead to marsupial-focused conservation and gestational technologies that we weren't pursuing before starting on the project.“This means that there is an interesting interaction between perception and cognition - our beliefs and prior experience can influence what we see. Pask's over a decade work on the thylacine makes him (and his lab) the best subject matter expert we could have ever hoped for on the project. Furthermore, we have incredible tissue samples and genomes assembled as well as many additional pelts that are being sequenced for population genomics studies. Melbourne researchers have used Tasmanian tiger specimens more than a century old to create new 3D digital models, unlocking mysteries of the marsupials development before it was hunted to. The thylacine is a great candidate for de-extinction because it only went extinct in 1936 due to human hunting and the ecosystem we are looking to return it to is still intact. Pask and seeing his work on the Tasmanian tiger as well as weighing the benefits for its de-extinction, we were excited to collaborate with him and University of Melbourne to help bring back a proxy for the thylacine. Now that the mammoth team is fully staffed and making great progress, we started to look for our second species to pursue. LAMM: 'From a Colossal perspective, we are interested in pursuing de-extinction projects where the reintroduction of the restored species can fill an ecological void that was created when the species went extinct and help restore the degraded ecosystem. These gestational technologies alone will be transformational for marsupial conservation.'

In addition, Colossal is working on full-stage artificial wombs that can help in full ex-utero development all the way from embryos. Our exo-pouch we are developing for the thylacine project could be incredibly helpful to conservationists working with the Tasmanian devils to take those additional 20+ joeys and give them a place to incubate further. However, the mother has only four nipples, so only a handful of babies survive. The Tasmanian devil gives birth to 20 or 30 joeys. The exo-pouches can be utilized for existing marsupial species such as the Tasmanian devil. For example, we are developing an exo-pouch that the joeys will further develop in post birth.

In addition to the benefits of rewilding and helping to balance an ecosystem that mankind had a hand in its degradation, Colossal is developing marsupial-focused conservation and gestational technologies that will support broader marsupial conservation efforts. LAMM: 'In addition to the local ecosystems, the broader conservation community also benefits from de-extinction work.

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