Archivists restore last known footage of Tasmanian tiger

The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia releases the 21-second clip, from 1935, of Benjamin, the thylacine

Australian archivists have uncovered the last known surviving footage of the now-extinct Tasmanian tiger. The 21-second clip from a 1935 travelogue called Tasmania the Wonderland has been digitized in 4K, and joins just three minutes of previously recorded footage of the predator. The other recordings were from the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart and the London Zoo, where the large carnivorous marsupials called thylacines were held in captivity.

In the black and white clip, Benjamin, a male Tasmanian tiger, paces in his enclosure, as a zookeeper and an associate rattle the cage walls in an attempt to elicit a reaction. Though it’s unclear who the narrator is, researchers at the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia thinks Tasmania the Wonderland was filmed by Sidney Cook, a Brisbane-based filmmaker and exhibitor, according to a Tuesday press release.

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Read more: cnet