The Tasmanian tiger, a dog-sized striped carnivorous marsupial also called the thylacine, once roamed the Australian continent and adjacent islands, an apex predator that hunted kangaroos and other prey. Because of humans, the species is now extinct.
But that does not mean scientists have stopped learning about it. In a scientific first, researchers said on Tuesday they have recovered RNA - genetic material present in all living cells that has structural similarities to DNA - from the desiccated skin and muscle of a Tasmanian tiger stored since 1891 at a museum in Stockholm.
Scientists in recent years have extracted DNA from ancient animals and plants, some of it upwards of 2 million years old. But this study marked the first time that RNA - much less stable than DNA - has been recovered from an extinct species.
