Ace History Desk – Australian rock art suggests Tasmanian tigers survived longer than previously believed

The Tasmanian tiger – the striped, dog-like marsupial also known as the thylacine – has become a
kind of Australian legend. People know it as an animal that vanished too soon, leaving behind
grainy photos, museum specimens, and endless “what if?” debates.

Now, a new set of rock art discoveries in northern Australia is adding something fresh to that
story. 

Rock art depicting thylacines

A project led by Griffith University’s Professor Paul Taçon documented 14 newly recorded
thylacine images and two Tasmanian devil images at two locations in northwest Arnhem Land, in
the Northern Territory.

The art does not prove that thylacines were still roaming the mainland recently, but it is enough to make
scientists think harder about when they truly disappeared – and how important they remained to
people long after they had vanished.

Big gap in the thylacine record

Thylacines and Tasmanian devils are widely thought to have vanished from mainland Australia
about 3,000 years ago. That’s the accepted timeline that most people learn.

But some of the newly documented paintings may be far younger than that – potentially less than
1,000 years old – which raises an uncomfortable (and fascinating) possibility. Perhaps these
animals persisted longer in northern regions than we usually assume.

Different art styles suggest ages

The team recorded paintings in multiple Aboriginal art styles, often using red ochre (sometimes
yellow), a tradition that stretches back roughly 15,000 years in the region.

But some of the artworks also involve white pipe clay, which is more fragile and doesn’t stain
rock like red ochre does.

Because white pigment tends not to last as long, rock art researchers often treat white-pigment
paintings as more recent – in many cases, under 1,000 years old.

That’s why the medium matters. If the thylacines in white-pigment art truly belong to a recent
phase of painting, it’s harder to shrug them off as purely ancient memory.

Did artists paint what they saw?

Professor Taçon doesn’t claim the new paintings are a smoking gun. But he does suggest two
plausible explanations for why “recent” thylacines show up in the art.

“The artists who made the more recent paintings may have seen actual living thylacines and
some of these creatures may have survived longer in Arnhem Land,” he proposed. “Alternatively, artists may have been inspired by earlier paintings.”

“Regardless, the thylacine remains culturally important today and some contemporary artists
make paintings of Tasmanian tigers on bark, paper, and canvas. It even has a name: Djankerrk,” added Professor Taçon.

This could reflect real late survival. Or it could reflect continuity of imagery and meaning, with
later artists reworking older motifs. Either way, it shows the thylacine wasn’t a minor animal in
the cultural landscape.

Thylacines were common than devils

Another detail from the study helps frame the significance: thylacines appear to have been much
more widely depicted than Tasmanian devils on the mainland.

Taçon notes that only 25 Tasmanian devil images have been documented, compared with more
than 160 thylacine depictions.

That doesn’t automatically translate to population size, but it does say something about cultural
presence. These weren’t rare, “one-off” images. Across Australia, people kept painting
thylacines.

Retouching indicates significance

Co-author Andrea Jalandoni from the Griffith Center for Social and Cultural Research pointed out
another clue to the importance of these animals over time. 

Some paintings in the area were retouched, which is often a sign that an image remained meaningful across generations.

“Thylacine rock art offers rare insight into how people related to this animal in the past,” she
said.

“These depictions show that the thylacine held a meaningful place in everyday life and local
knowledge, long before it went extinct.”

That’s one of the most important points in the whole piece. Rock art isn’t just “a picture of an
animal.” It’s often a window into how people saw that animal – whether as prey, companion,
spiritual figure, or part of story and place.

Rainbow Serpent connection and hunting tradition

The article also brings in oral history from the region, where thylacines are linked with water. 

In some stories, thylacines were said to be pets of the Rainbow Serpent and to live in rock pools,
where they are often associated with swimming and waterways.

And for community members, the thylacine isn’t just an extinct animal in a book. Joey
Nganjmirra, a Djalama man from Western Arnhem Land and a co-author of the study, connects
it directly to ancestral life.

“They used to tell stories about going hunting with thylacines,” Nganjmirra said. “Not a ghost from the past.”

Thylacines, culture, and rock art

Taçon says the collaboration itself matters here. This research isn’t only about dating pigment
and counting images. It also shows that the thylacine still has meaning in the region today.

“The thylacine lives on in western Arnhem Land not as a ghost from the past but as a meaningful
creature that still has present-day significance,” he said.

That’s a powerful way to put it. Even if thylacines truly disappeared from the mainland
thousands of years ago, the cultural relationship didn’t vanish with them. 

And if some of these paintings really are young, then the timeline of disappearance may need revisiting.

Lessons from thylacine rock art

Rock art alone can’t confirm that thylacines were alive in Arnhem Land less than 1,000 years
ago. Dating rock art is notoriously difficult, and cultural memory can preserve animals long after
they’re gone.

But the study does add new evidence that thylacines and devils were important enough to depict, revisit, and sometimes repaint. 

And it raises a fair question: if the art is younger than expected, what else might we be missing about when these animals last shared the mainland with people?

At the very least, this isn’t just a story about extinction. It’s also a story about continuity – about
how an animal can remain present in language, art, and memory long after it disappears from the
landscape.

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