Mo Ganji: Tasmanian Tiger | Beutelwolf | Thylacinus cynocephalus | No. EX 011/012 from work group 8/99

Tasmanian Tiger | Beutelwolf | Thylacinus cynocephalus (Extinct)

Mo Ganji turns toward the Tasmanian tiger — a large carnivorous marsupial once inhabiting Tasmania and formerly mainland Australia — by letting the single line move toward essence rather than hybridity, legend or loss. The line condenses the being into a reduced coherence, setting aside stripes, jaws and taxonomy so that presence can surface without depiction. In Ganji’s understanding, the line does not belong to the thylacine alone; it remains open, reminding us that every form is also a human concept provisionally placed upon a living continuum.

Thylacinus cynocephalus is listed as Extinct (EX) on the IUCN Red List. The species declined rapidly after European settlement of Tasmania, and the last known individual died in captivity at Hobart Zoo in 1936. Once a top predator within its ecosystem, the thylacine disappeared within a few decades of sustained human pressure.

The principal causes of extinction included intensive persecution driven by livestock conflict, government bounty programs, habitat loss, and possibly disease. Despite limited evidence that thylacines posed a significant threat to sheep, fear and economic framing justified widespread eradication. Isolation prevented recolonization, and legal protection came only after the species was already functionally extinct.

Ganji’s single line opens a space in which the thylacine can be encountered beyond myth or speculation. It allows the being to be perceived as a life removed through misattribution and projection, suggesting how extinction often follows not from what a species is, but from what it is believed to represent — leaving absence where coexistence might once have been possible.