By Tim Binnall
A remarkable video circulating online offers a rather unique perspective on the legendary Tasmanian Tiger by way of newly colorized footage of the last known creature of its kind. The fantastic piece of work was reportedly produced by a Reddit user who uploaded it to the site earlier this week. The scene seen in the video comes from a 1933 piece of footage filmed by biologist David Fleay, who was studying Benjamin, the only remaining Tasmanian Tiger in captivity.
In the almost eerie video, viewers are able to see, for the first time in color, the vividly striped creature strutting around his enclosure, lounging on the ground, and gnawing at a bone. The enhanced footage provides perhaps the best glimpse of the famed Tasmanian Tiger as it existed before Benjamin died three years later and his entire species was declared extinct in the 1980s after fifty years had passed without anyone seeing much less capturing a thylacine.
Of course, not everyone is convinced that the creature truly did go extinct and there is a fairly healthy community of researchers in Australia who have diligently worked to document possible sightings of the thylacine over the years. Alas, despite numerous videos and photos possibly showing the creature in modern times, definitive proof for the hypothesis has yet to be obtained. As such, the theory that the Tasmanian Tiger still roams parts of Australia is largely considered an impossibility by mainstream scientists.