Extinct Thylacine Head Sells for £60,000 After £50 Market Find Is Identified
Updated
Updated · BBC.com · Aug 14
Extinct Thylacine Head Sells for £60,000 After £50 Market Find Is Identified
3 articles · Updated · BBC.com · Aug 14
Summary
£60,000 was paid at a Bristol auction for a mounted thylacine head that had originally been bought for just £50 as what was thought to be an antique taxidermy fox.
Only 101 taxidermy thylacine specimens are known, helping drive bidding rapidly into the tens of thousands for a complete mounted head rarely seen outside museums and scientific institutions.
James Cranfield, a taxidermy and natural history collector, bought the piece and said he plans to keep it available to academic and scientific researchers.
The thylacine—also called the Tasmanian Tiger—survived in Tasmania into the 20th century before hunting, disease and habitat loss pushed it to extinction; the last known animal died in Hobart Zoo in 1936.