Thylacine DNA reveals lacks of diversity Tiny gene pool The
Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, had very limited genetic
diversity before it died out, according to a new study, which
suggests a similar fate for the Tasmanian devil. Hunted to the
brink of extinction, the last known thylacine (Thylacinus
cynocephalus) died in captivity in 1936. But specimens of the
dog-like marsupial are preserved in museums around the world. A
team of scientists, led by Dr Brandon Menzies from the Liebniz
Institute and the University of Melbourne, collected genetic
samples from 14 thylacine specimens, to measure their genetic
diversity. The findings are published online in the journal PLoS
One. "We've sampled a number of animals before the bounty in
1888 till 1909 and sequenced the DNA of a small piece of the
genome," says Menzies. "Individuals show about five base
diffferences between dogs, which is equivalent to 2 per cent of
DNA. In the Tasmanian tiger it looks like only half a per cent
of that region is variable, much less than