| In Tasmania, T.
cynocephalus fossils have been found at Scotchtown (Gill
1953). In Victoria, fossil material has been found at Keilor
(Marshall 1974), in a cave near Gismore (Gill
1953), at Buchan (Hope 1974), Mt. Hamilton,
175 km west of Melbourne (Wakefield 1963),
and at Nelson (Colliver 1938). In South
Australia, specimens of Pleistocene age were discovered within
Victoria
Cave, near Naracoorte (Smith 1972).
At nearby Henschke's
Quarry Cave, more Pleistocene specimens were
found which are around 32,000 years old (Pledge 1974),
and occur in association with the fossils of marsupial species that are
characteristic of the dry sclerophyll forests and dense heath habitats
which still exist in the region today. Additional South Australian
localities for thylacine material include the Buckalowie Caves near Carrieton
(Jones 1923), and an isolated, malformed tooth
from Fromm's Landing, dated at 3,800 BP (Mulvaney
et al. 1964, and Archer 1971).
In New South Wales,
thylacine fossils have been found in the Wellington
Caves (Owen 1877), the Wombeyan Caves (Broom
1896), and Lake Menindee (Tedford 1967).
The Lake
Menindee specimens were collected from a stratum between two layers
of charcoal, dated at 26,300 and 18,800 years BP respectively. In
Queensland, sites include Cement Mills, Gore (Bartholomai
1977), Ellangowan, Pilton, Gowrie Creek and Chinchilla (DeVis
1894). |
