Did the Tasmanian Tiger inhabit the mainland some time ago? Could it explain the kangaroo?

Question

Just like antilopes run fast because they're threatened, so the Kangaroo got its powerful hind legs and ability to hop.
They played wile coyote and rr for 10's of thousands of years...

" Tassie tiger or simply the tiger.[6] Native to continental Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea, it is thought to have become extinct in the 20th century."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine

Answer 1

It's a good question. On the one hand. there is a vacant niche for large predators which could well have been filled by the Tassie Tiger. On the other hand, kangaroos need speed to cover huge distances in a search for food in this dry barren continent. Their hopping motion is said to be very economical in terms of burning energy (vis a vis running).

Answer 2

The Tasmanian Tiger died out in mainland Australia ~2000 years ago, in Tasmania the Tiger is known to have hunted wallaby and could handle something as large as a sheep, but would have been no match for a Red or Grey. So no, the Kangaroo is not an adaption for the Tiger, go back to the Australia megafauna period and you find the Tiger was certainly no where near be the top predator.

The Thylacoleo was far larger

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacoleo



If you ever visit the Hobart Museum you will also see a Kangaroo that would have made the Tiger run a mile it is also from the megafauna period and stood up to ten feet tall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procoptodon



This was amongst a range of animals that were all quite large Including a relative of the Wombat that weighed 2 tons ther was also an equivalent to the possum but the size of a Puma and carnivorous, so the Tiger was not even close to the top of the food chain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_megafauna#Marsupials



As far as the legs of Kangaroos go, they are for speed and sparing amongst males, they are not a practical weapon of defense except against rather slow tourists, and of couse the other competitor that Tigers had on the mainland was the Dingo which came to Australia with one of the migrations of Aboriginals thousands of years ago, it is probably not a great coincidence that Tigers survived here in Tasmania an extra 2000 years and that the Dingo never made it here before the land bridge connecting us to the mainland was flooded at the end of the last ice age.

Answer 3

I'm not sure what your question is, does what explain the kangaroo?



The 20th century was last century (ie, it finished about 11 years ago). The thylacine has not been spotted (officially) since the mid 20th century, so if it is extinct it has only been for 50-80 years. Kangaroos have been around for quite a bit longer then 50-80 years, so no, all the thylacine did not turn into kangaroos and hop away. They were hunted by farmers and lost out in the competition for food stakes to an introduced species, the fox.