Tasmanian Tiger once used to be a living species on earth, but now, not even a single piece left. This doglike marsupial species was also known as the Thylacine. It was considered as a sheep hunter by the colonists in 1830’s so they started hunting this species which drifted them towards extinction. The last Thylacine named Benjamin was found in a zoo. But after his death in 1936 all of the evidence lost.

It is one of the species that was hardly studied before so, many facts about this striped creature was still unknown. A research team from Emory University directed by Dr. Gregory Berns started Neural scans on the preserved brain of this extinct species to reveal hidden facts which had been lost since the species went extinct. Their findings were first published in PLOS One journal on January 18th, Wednesday.

Neuroscientist Dr. Barnes said in a statement,”“Part of the myth about them is what exactly did they eat, how did they hunt and were they social? These are questions nobody really knows the answers to”. By examining the sharp teeth, slender bodies and long snouts, Dr. Barnes came to a conclusion that they could be related to Dogs, wolves or coyotes. Although, they were separated by the 150 million years of convergent evolution.

According to the report by The New York Times, Dr. Barnes collected two brains of Thylacines and performed several brain scans. Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) he studied Gray matters and to study white matters he used diffusion tensor imaging techniques. Those studies were performed at the Smithsonian Institution and the other at the Australian Museum.

From those studies, he found that they belong to the family of marsupial mammals which is slightly different from placental mammals. They have a large brain especially the frontal lobe part but, their brain contains a lack of corpus callosum, which connects the right and left hemisphere of the brain.

Research data suggests that the Tasmanian devil is one of the closest living relatives of Tasmanian Tiger. Researchers compared Tasmanian devil’s brain with Thylacine and found that Thylacine is smarter than the Tasmanian devil. It uses their cortex more for decision making. However, Dr. Barnes wants to conduct more researches on this species to gather more information which was never found before.

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