Reports of alleged thylacine sightings in Western Australia.

The thylacine (Tasmanian tiger Thylacinus cyanocephalus) was Australia's largest carnivorous marsupial at the time of arrival of Europeans. The animal was the size and shape of a large dog. Thylacines lived in Tasmania until 1936 when the last one died in captivity at Hobart Zoo. There have been a few hundred sightings in Tasmania since then, but none have been confirmed in a scientific sense. The Tasmanian National Parks and Wildlife Service considers that the thylacine is probably extinct in Tasmania. Fossil remains of thylacines have been discovered in all Australian States and New Guinea but they are considered by scientists to have been extinct on the mainland for some 3000 years. There have been alleged thylacine sightings in all of the mainland States but as in Tasmania, none of the sightings have been confirmed scientifically. This paper provides some data derived from 203 alleged thylacine reports from Western Australia, brought to the attention of the Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) and/or the Mystery Animal Research Centre of Australia (MARCA) to 1998. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]