Scientists have found that the marsupial or Tasmanian wolf disappeared from Australia due to extreme weather conditions and drought. Wild dogs and Aboriginal hunting did not affect the wolf population. Research by biologists from the University of Adelaide is published in the Journal of Biogeography.
Marsupial wolves disappeared from Australia about 3 thousand years ago, but continued to live on the island of Tasmania until 1936. The reason for the disappearance of species from the mainland and their existence over the next three thousand years on the island remained unclear. According to one theory, the creatures were killed by dingo dogs, which were not in Tasmania.
Scientists have examined ancient DNA extracted from the bones of creatures. It turned out that climate change about 4 thousand years ago, especially the drought caused by the El Niño current, led to the disappearance of wolves from the mainland.
“Marsupial wolves once inhabited most of the Australian mainland, but by the time Europeans arrived in the late 1700s, wolves were only found in Tasmania. From the DNA sequence extracted from the bones of the marsupial wolf, we learned that in southern Australia, creatures were divided into eastern and western populations. This happened before the onset of the last ice age about 25 thousand years ago, - said study author Lauren White.
According to scientists, the El Niño current and drought affected the marsupial wolves in Tasmania less, as the island receives more rainfall.