By Tim Binnall
A diligent Tasmanian Tiger researcher located in Greece has managed to unearth a pair of film clips which provide a rare glimpse of the extinct creature. The fantastic discovery was reportedly made by Andrew Vamvatsikos, who located the lost footage while scouring the online catalog of the Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office. The brief films were shot by Dr. Randle Stewart, a psychiatrist who was visiting the Beaumaris Zoo in Tasmania while on vacation in the spring of 1931. The creature featured in the footage is the last living thylacine held in captivity, named Benjamin, who died in September of 1936.
According to Mike Williams of the Centre for Fortean Zoology's Australian branch, the footage is of particular interest to Tasmanian Tiger enthusiasts as the 'Stewart film,' as it has come to be known, "has been a legend among thylacine researchers for decades" after it somehow "disappeared between 1978 and 1983." Fortunately, fans of the famed creature can now watch the footage that has been largely apocryphal for more than forty years.
In the first clip, incorrectly titled 'Tasmanian Wolf,' a young Benjamin can be seen up close walking around its enclosure in the Beaumaris Zoo. The second piece of footage focuses on a Tasmanian Devil at the facility, but the last thylacine can be seen walking behind it in the background. Amazingly, that incredibly brief film is the only known recording of a Tasmanian Tiger and a Tasmanian Devil next to each other. In a testament to how rare and precious the two newfound films are, they constitute just the 12th and 13th known pieces of footage featuring the thylacine and, when compiled together, the complete 'collection' runs a mere four minutes in total.