Did dingo attacks drive the Tassie tiger extinct?

A size estimate of mainland thylacines shows they were smaller and more vulnerable than their Tasmanian cousins.

Atacks by dingoes may have been a major factor that drove the Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, extinct on the Australian mainland 3500 years ago, says a new study.

Up until now, experts had thought that an improvement in human technologies for hunting or competition with dingoes for prey were some of the most likely causes of the decline. Thylacines were thought to have been significantly larger than dingoes, and therefore would have had little to fear from them.

However, a new analysis of fossil bones led by Dr Michael Letnic, an ecologist at the University of Sydney, suggests that thylacines on the mainland may have been equal in size or smaller than dingoes, making them vulnerable to predation from them.