Archaeologists in Australia have discovered centuries-old Indigenous rock art depicting Tasmanian devils and the now-extinct Tasmanian tiger, a new study reports. The findings suggest that the Tasmanian tiger may have survived on the Australian mainland until much more recently than previously thought.
The team documented around 14 new rock-art drawings of the thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus), a carnivorous marsupial also known as the Tasmanian tiger, and two rock-art images of the Tasmanian devil (Thylacinus cynocephalus) in Arnhem Land, in northern Australia, the team said in a statement. The government of Arnhem Land is run by the region's Aboriginal people and, with a population of roughly 16,000 people, it has a relatively low population density with much of its environment preserved.
