Thylacine

The thylacine (/ˈθaɪləsiːn/; binomial name Thylacinus cynocephalus), also commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf, is an extinct carnivorous marsupial that was native to the Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea. The thylacine had died out on New Guinea and mainland Australia around 3,500 years ago, prior to the arrival of Europeans, possibly because of the introduction of the dingo, whose earliest record dates to around the same time, but which never reached Tasmania. Prior to European settlement around 5,000 remained in the wild on Tasmania. Beginning in the nineteenth century they were perceived as a threat to the livestock of farmers and bounty hunting was introduced. The last known of its species died in 1936 at Hobart Zoo in Tasmania. The thylacine is widespread in popular culture and is a cultural icon in Australia.

The thylacine was known as the Tasmanian tiger because it displayed dark transverse stripes that radiated from the top of its back, and it was known as the Tasmanian wolf because it had the general appearance of a medium-to-large-size canid. The name thylacine is derived from thýlakos meaning "pouch" and ine meaning "pertaining to", and refers to the marsupial pouch. Both sexes had a pouch. The females used theirs for rearing young and the males used theirs as a protective sheath, covering the external reproductive organs. It also had a stiff tail and could open its jaws to an unusual extent. The thylacine was an apex predator, though exactly how large its prey had been is disputed. Its closest living relatives are the other members of Dasyuromorphia including the Tasmanian devil.

Intensive hunting on Tasmania is generally blamed for its extinction, but other contributing factors were disease, the introduction of and competition with dingoes, human encroachment into its habitat and climate change. The remains of the last known thylacine were discovered at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in 2022. Since extinction there have been numerous searches and reported sightings of live animals, none of which have been confirmed.

The thylacine has been used extensively as a symbol of Tasmania. The animal is featured on the official coat of arms of Tasmania. On 7 September, the date in 1936 on which the last known thylacine died, National Threatened Species Day is commemorated in Australia. Universities, museums and other institutions across the world research the animal. Its whole genome sequence has been mapped and there are efforts to clone and bring them back to life.

## Taxonomic and evolutionary history

Numerous examples of thylacine engravings and rock art have been found, dating back to at least 1000 BC. Petroglyph images of the thylacine can be found at the Dampier Rock Art Precinct, on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia.

By the time the first European explorers arrived, the animal was already extinct in mainland Australia and New Guinea, and rare in Tasmania. Europeans may have encountered it in Tasmania as far back as 1642, when Abel Tasman first arrived in Tasmania. His shore party reported seeing the footprints of "wild beasts having claws like a Tyger". Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne, arriving with the Mascarin in 1772, reported seeing a "tiger cat".

The first definitive encounter was by French explorers on 13 May 1792, as noted by the naturalist Jacques Labillardière, in his journal from the expedition led by d'Entrecasteaux. In 1805, William Paterson, the Lieutenant Governor of Tasmania, sent a detailed description for publication in the Sydney Gazette. He also sent a description of the thylacine in a letter to Joseph Banks, dated 30 March 1805.

The first detailed scientific description was made by Tasmania's Deputy Surveyor-General, George Harris, in 1808, five years after first European settlement of the island. Harris originally placed the thylacine in the genus Didelphis, which had been created by Linnaeus for the American opossums, describing it as Didelphis cynocephala, the "dog-headed opossum". Recognition that the Australian marsupials were fundamentally different from the known mammal genera led to the establishment of the modern classification scheme, and in 1796, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire created the genus Dasyurus, where he placed the thylacine in 1810. To resolve the mixture of Greek and Latin nomenclature, the species name was altered to cynocephalus. In 1824, it was separated out into its own genus, Thylacinus, by Temminck. The common name derives directly from the genus name, originally from the Greek θύλακος (thýlakos), meaning "pouch" or "sack" and ine meaning "pertaining to". The name is pronounced THY-lə-seen or THY-lə-syne.

### Evolution

The modern thylacine probably appeared about 2 million years ago, during the Early Pleistocene. Specimens from the Pliocene-aged Chinchilla Fauna, described as Thylacinus rostralis by Charles De Vis in 1894, have in the past been suggested to represent Thylacinus cynocephalus, but have been shown to either have been curatorial errors, or ambiguous in their specific attribution. The family Thylacinidae includes at least 12 species in eight genera, and appears around the late Oligocene with the small, plesiomorphic Badjcinus turnbulli. Early thylacinids were quoll-sized, well under 10 kg (22 lb), and probably ate insects and small reptiles and mammals, although signs of an increasingly-carnivorous diet can be seen as early as the early Miocene in Wabulacinus. Members of the genus Thylacinus are notable for a dramatic increase in both the expression of carnivorous dental traits and in size, with the largest species, Thylacinus potens and Thylacinus megiriani both approaching the size of a wolf. In Late Pleistocene and early Holocene times, the modern thylacine was widespread (although never numerous) throughout Australia and New Guinea.

A classic example of convergent evolution, the thylacine showed many similarities to the members of the dog family, Canidae, of the Northern Hemisphere: sharp teeth, powerful jaws, raised heels, and the same general body form. Since the thylacine filled the same ecological niche in Australia and New Guinea as canids did elsewhere, it developed many of the same features. Despite this, as a marsupial, it is unrelated to any of the Northern Hemisphere placental mammal predators.

The thylacine is a basal member of the Dasyuromorphia, along with numbats, dunnarts, wambengers, and quolls. The cladogram follows:

## Description

The only recorded species of Thylacinus, a genus that superficially resembles the dogs and foxes of the family Canidae, the animal was a predatory marsupial that existed on mainland Australia during the Holocene epoch and observed by Europeans on the island of Tasmania; the species is known as the Tasmanian tiger for the striped markings of the pelage. Descriptions of the thylacine come from preserved specimens, fossil records, skins and skeletal remains, and black and white photographs and film of the animal both in captivity and from the field. The thylacine resembled a large, short-haired dog with a stiff tail which smoothly extended from the body in a way similar to that of a kangaroo. The mature thylacine ranged from 100 to 130 cm (39 to 51 in) long, plus a tail of around 50 to 65 cm (20 to 26 in). Adults stood about 60 cm (24 in) and they could weigh anywhere from 8 to 30 kg (18 to 66 lb). There was slight sexual dimorphism with the males being larger than females on average. Males weighed on average 19.7 kilograms (43 lb), and females on average weighed 13.7 kilograms (30 lb). The skull is noted to be highly convergent on those of canids, most closely remembling that of the red fox.

Thylacines, uniquely for marsupials, had largely cartilaginous epipubic bones with a highly reduced osseous element. This has been once considered a synapomorphy with sparassodonts, though it is now thought that both groups reduced their epipubics independently. Its yellow-brown coat featured 15 to 20 distinctive dark stripes across its back, rump and the base of its tail, which earned the animal the nickname "tiger". The stripes were more pronounced in younger specimens, fading as the animal got older. One of the stripes extended down the outside of the rear thigh. Its body hair was dense and soft, up to 15 mm (0.6 in) in length. Colouration varied from light fawn to a dark brown; the belly was cream-coloured.

Its rounded, erect ears were about 8 cm (3.1 in) long and covered with short fur. The early scientific studies suggested it possessed an acute sense of smell which enabled it to track prey, but analysis of its brain structure revealed that its olfactory bulbs were not well developed. It is likely to have relied on sight and sound when hunting instead. In 2017, Berns and Ashwell published comparative cortical maps of thylacine and Tasmanian devil brains, showing that the thylacine had a larger, more modularised basal ganglion. The authors associated these differences with the thylacine's more predatory lifestyle. Analysis of the forebrain published in 2023 suggested that it was similar in morphology to other dasyurmorph marsupials and dissimilar to that of canids.

The thylacine was able to open its jaws to an unusual extent: up to 80 degrees. This capability can be seen in part in David Fleay's short black-and-white film sequence of a captive thylacine from 1933. The jaws were muscular, and had 46 teeth, but studies show the thylacine jaw was too weak to kill sheep. The tail vertebrae were fused to a degree, with resulting restriction of full tail movement. Fusion may have occurred as the animal reached full maturity. The tail tapered towards the tip. In juveniles, the tip of the tail had a ridge. The female thylacine had a pouch with four teats, but unlike many other marsupials, the pouch opened to the rear of its body. Males had a scrotal pouch, unique amongst the Australian marsupials, into which they could withdraw their scrotal sac for protection.

Thylacine footprints could be distinguished from other native or introduced animals; unlike foxes, cats, dogs, wombats, or Tasmanian devils, thylacines had a very large rear pad and four obvious front pads, arranged in almost a straight line. The hindfeet were similar to the forefeet but had four digits rather than five. Their claws were non-retractable. The plantar pad is tri-lobal in that it exhibits three distinctive lobes. It is a single plantar pad divided by three deep grooves. The distinctive plantar pad shape along with the asymmetrical nature of the foot makes it quite different from animals such as dogs or foxes.

The thylacine was noted as having a stiff and somewhat awkward gait, making it unable to run at high speed. It could also perform a bipedal hop, in a fashion similar to a kangaroo—demonstrated at various times by captive specimens. Guiler speculates that this was used as an accelerated form of motion when the animal became alarmed. The animal was also able to balance on its hind legs and stand upright for brief periods.

Observers of the animal in the wild and in captivity noted that it would growl and hiss when agitated, often accompanied by a threat-yawn. During hunting, it would emit a series of rapidly repeated guttural cough-like barks (described as "yip-yap", "cay-yip" or "hop-hop-hop"), probably for communication between the family pack members. It also had a long whining cry, probably for identification at distance, and a low snuffling noise used for communication between family members. Some observers described it as having a strong and distinctive smell, others described a faint, clean, animal odour, and some no odour at all. It is possible that the thylacine, like its relative, the Tasmanian devil, gave off an odour when agitated.

## Distribution and habitat

The thylacine most likely preferred the dry eucalyptus forests, wetlands, and grasslands of mainland Australia. Indigenous Australian rock paintings indicate that the thylacine lived throughout mainland Australia and New Guinea. Proof of the animal's existence in mainland Australia came from a desiccated carcass that was discovered in a cave in the Nullarbor Plain in Western Australia in 1990; carbon dating revealed it to be around 3,300 years old. Recently examined fossilised footprints also suggest historical distribution of the species on Kangaroo Island. The northernmost record of the species is from the Kiowa rock shelter in Chimbu Province in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, dating to the Early Holocene, around 10,000–8,500 years Before Present. In 2017, White, Mitchell and Austin published a large-scale analysis of thylacine mitochondrial genomes, showing that they had split into eastern and western populations on the mainland prior to the Last Glacial Maximum and that Tasmanian thylacines low genetic diversity by the time of European arrival.

In Tasmania it preferred the woodlands of the midlands and coastal heath, which eventually became the primary focus of British settlers seeking grazing land for their livestock. The striped pattern may have provided camouflage in woodland conditions, but it may have also served for identification purposes. The animal had a typical home range of between 40 and 80 km2 (15 and 31 sq mi). It appears to have kept to its home range without being territorial; groups too large to be a family unit were sometimes observed together.

## Ecology and behaviour

### Reproduction

There is evidence for at least some year-round breeding (cull records show joeys discovered in the pouch at all times of the year), although the peak breeding season was in winter and spring. They would produce up to four joeys per litter (typically two or three), carrying the young in a pouch for up to three months and protecting them until they were at least half adult size. Early pouch young were hairless and blind, but they had their eyes open and were fully furred by the time they left the pouch. The young also had their own pouches that are not visible until they are 9.5 weeks old. After leaving the pouch, and until they were developed enough to assist, the juveniles would remain in the lair while their mother hunted. Thylacines only once bred successfully in captivity, in Melbourne Zoo in 1899. Their life expectancy in the wild is estimated to have been 5 to 7 years, although captive specimens survived up to 9 years.

In 2018, Newton et al. collected and CT-scanned all known preserved thylacine pouch young specimens to digitally reconstruct its development throughout its entire window of growth in the mother's pouch. This study revealed new information on the biology of the thylacine, including the growth of its limbs and when it developed its 'dog-like' appearance. It was found that two of the thylacine young in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) were misidentified and of another species, reducing the number of known pouch young specimens to 11 worldwide. One of four specimens kept at Museum Victoria has been serially sectioned, allowing an in-depth investigation of its internal tissues and providing some insights into thylacine pouch young development, biology, immunology and ecology.

### Feeding and diet

The thylacine was an apex predator, though exactly how large its prey animals could be is disputed. It was a nocturnal and crepuscular hunter, spending the daylight hours in small caves or hollow tree trunks in a nest of twigs, bark, or fern fronds. It tended to retreat to the hills and forest for shelter during the day and hunted in the open heath at night. Early observers noted that the animal was typically shy and secretive, with awareness of the presence of humans and generally avoiding contact, though it occasionally showed inquisitive traits. At the time, much stigma existed in regard to its "fierce" nature; this is likely to be due to its perceived threat to agriculture.

The thylacine was exclusively carnivorous. In captivity, thylacines had a clear preference for birds (particularly chickens). In the wild, large ground-dwelling birds (such as Tasmanian nativehens) may have been their primary prey, since they are documented to have hunted a wide range of them, and its comparatively moderate bite force was more suited to hollow avian bones. During its peak occupation of the mainland, such prey would have been bountiful, and studies of their Pleistocene habitat points to a more suitable diet consisting of a range of megapodes (such as the giant malleefowl), ratites (such as the emu), and possibly dromornithids (all of which became extinct prior to European settlement). At the time of European settlement, the Tasmanian emu, a subspecies believed to be smaller than mainland emus, was common and widespread, and thylacines were known to prey on them and share the same habitat. Many early depictions of them hunting included emu. The large, flightless bird was hunted to extinction by humans within 30 years of European settlement. The extinction correlates with a rapid decline in thylacine numbers. Cassowary species of northern Australia and New Guinea coexisted with the thylacine, but had developed strong defenses against predators. However, the emu was more vulnerable to the thylacine's predatory adaptions, including endurance hunting and a bipedal hop. Dingoes, feral dogs, and red foxes have all been noted to hunt the emu on the mainland and killings of emus by dogs were noted in Tasmania. European settlers believed the thylacine to prey upon farmers' sheep and poultry. Throughout the 20th century, the thylacine was often characterised as primarily a blood drinker; according to Robert Paddle, the story's popularity seems to have originated from a single second-hand account heard by Geoffrey Smith (1881–1916) in a shepherd's hut.

There is some controversy over the preferred prey size of the thylacine. A 2011 study by the University of New South Wales using advanced computer modelling indicated that the thylacine had surprisingly feeble jaws. Animals usually take prey close to their own body size, but an adult thylacine of around 30 kilograms (66 lb) was found to be incapable of handling prey much larger than 5 kilograms (11 lb). Thus, some researchers believe thylacines only ate small animals such as bandicoots and possums, putting them into direct competition with the Tasmanian devil and the tiger quoll. Another study in 2020 produced similar results, after estimating the average thylacine weight as about 17 kilograms (37 lb) rather than 30 kilograms (66 lb), suggesting that the animal did indeed hunt much smaller prey.

However, an earlier study showed that the thylacine had a bite force quotient of 166, similar to that of most quolls; in modern mammalian predators, such a high bite force is almost always associated with predators which routinely take prey as large, or larger than, themselves. If the thylacine was indeed specialised for small prey, this specialisation likely made it susceptible to small disturbances to the ecosystem.

Analysis of the skeletal frame and observations of the thylacine in captivity suggest the species were pursuit predators, singling out a prey item and pursuing them until the prey was exhausted. However, trappers reported it as an ambush predator. The animal may have hunted in small family groups, with the main group herding prey in the general direction of an individual waiting in ambush. The predatory behaviour of the thylacine was possibly closer to the ambushing of felids than to large pursuit canids. Its stomach was muscular, and could distend to allow the animal to eat large amounts of food at one time, probably an adaptation to compensate for long periods when hunting was unsuccessful and food scarce.

In captivity, thylacines were fed a wide variety of foods, including dead rabbits and wallabies as well as beef, mutton, horse, and occasionally poultry. There is a report of a captive thylacine which refused to eat dead wallaby flesh or to kill and eat a live wallaby offered to it, but "ultimately it was persuaded to eat by having the smell of blood from a freshly killed wallaby put before its nose."

## Extinction

### Dying out on the Australian mainland

Australia lost more than 90% of its megafauna around 50-40,000 years ago as part of the Quaternary extinction event, with the notable exceptions of several kangaroo and wombat species, emus, cassowaries, large goannas and the thylacine. The extinctions included the even larger carnivore Thylacoleo carnifex (sometimes called the marsupial lion) which was only distantly related to the thylacine. A 2010 paper examining this issue showed that humans were likely to be one of the major factors in the extinction of many species in Australia although the authors of the research warned that one-factor explanations might be over-simplistic. The youngest radiocarbon dates of the thylacine in mainland Australia are around 3,500 years old, with an estimated extinction date around 3,200 years ago, synchronous with that of Tasmanian devil, and closely co-inciding with the earliest records of the dingo, as well as an intensification of human activity.

A study proposes that the dingo may have led to the extinction of the thylacine in mainland Australia because the dingo outcompeted the thylacine in preying on the Tasmanian nativehen. The dingo is also more likely to hunt in packs than the more solitary thylacine. Examinations of dingo and thylacine skulls show that although the dingo had a weaker bite, its skull could resist greater stresses, allowing it to pull down larger prey than the thylacine. Because it was a hypercarnivore, the thylacine was less versatile in its diet than the omnivorous dingo. Their ranges appear to have overlapped because thylacine subfossil remains have been discovered near those of dingoes. Aside from wild dingoes, the adoption of the dingo as a hunting companion by the indigenous peoples would have put the thylacine under increased pressure.

A 2013 study suggested that, while dingoes were a contributing factor to the thylacine's demise on the mainland, larger factors were the intense human population growth, technological advances and the abrupt change in the climate during the period. A report published in the Journal of Biogeography detailed an investigation into the mitochondrial DNA and radio-carbon dating of thylacine bones. It concluded that the thylacine died out on mainland Australia in a relatively short time span, and this was due to climate change.

### Dying out on Tasmania

Although the thylacine had died out on mainland Australia, it survived into the 1930s on the island of Tasmania. At the time of the first European settlement, the heaviest distributions were in the northeast, northwest and north-midland regions of the state. There were an estimated 5,000 at this time. They were rarely sighted during this time but slowly began to be credited with numerous attacks on sheep. This led to the establishment of bounty schemes in an attempt to control their numbers. The Van Diemen's Land Company introduced bounties on the thylacine from as early as 1830, and between 1888 and 1909 the Tasmanian government paid £1 per head for dead adult thylacines and ten shillings for pups. In all, they paid out 2,184 bounties, but it is thought that many more thylacines were killed than were claimed for. Its extinction is popularly attributed to these relentless efforts by farmers and bounty hunters.

Aside from persecution, it is likely that multiple factors rapidly compounded its decline and eventual extinction, including competition with wild dogs introduced by European settlers, erosion of its habitat, already-low genetic diversity, the concurrent extinction or decline of prey species, and a distemper-like disease that affected many captive specimens at the time. A study from 2012 suggested that the disease was likely introduced by humans, and that it was also present in the wild population. The marsupi-carnivore disease, as it became known, dramatically reduced the lifespan of the animal and greatly increased pup mortality.

A 1921 photo by Henry Burrell of a thylacine with a chicken was widely distributed and may have helped secure the animal's reputation as a poultry thief. The image had been cropped to hide the fact that the animal was in captivity, and analysis by one researcher has concluded that this thylacine was a dead specimen, posed for the camera. The photograph may even have involved photo manipulation.

The animal had become extremely rare in the wild by the late 1920s. Despite the fact that the thylacine was believed by many to be responsible for attacks on sheep, in 1928 the Tasmanian Advisory Committee for Native Fauna recommended a reserve similar to the Savage River National Park to protect any remaining thylacines, with potential sites of suitable habitat including the Arthur-Pieman area of western Tasmania.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the increasing rarity of thylacines led to increased demand for captive specimens by zoos around the world, adding yet another pressure to an already small population. Despite the export of breeding pairs, attempts at rearing thylacines in captivity were unsuccessful, and the last thylacine outside Australia died at the London Zoo in 1931.

The last known thylacine to be killed in the wild was shot in 1930 by Wilf Batty, a farmer from Mawbanna in the state's northwest. The animal, believed to have been a male, had been seen around Batty's house for several weeks.

Work in 2012 examined the relationship of the genetic diversity of the thylacines before their extinction. The results indicated that the last of the thylacines in Tasmania had limited genetic diversity due to their complete geographic isolation from mainland Australia. Further investigations in 2017 showed evidence that this decline in genetic diversity started long before the arrival of humans in Australia, possibly starting as early as 70–120 thousand years ago.

The thylacine held the status of endangered species until the 1980s. International standards at the time stated that an animal could not be declared extinct until 50 years had passed without a confirmed record. Since no definitive proof of the thylacine's existence in the wild had been obtained for more than 50 years, it met that official criterion and was declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 1982 and by the Tasmanian government in 1986. The species was removed from Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 2013.

### Last of the species

The last captive thylacine, lived as an endling (the known last of its species) at Hobart Zoo until its death on the night of 7 September 1936. The animal, a female, was captured by Elias Churchill with a snare trap and was sold to the zoo in May 1936. The sale was not publicly announced because the use of traps was illegal and Churchill could have been fined. After its death the remains of the endling were transferred to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. The remains were not properly recorded by the museum, also because the animal had been illegally caught. They lay undiscovered for decades until it was noticed that a taxidermist record dated from 1936 or 1937 mentioned the animal. This led to a full audit of all thylacine remains at the museum and the endling's successful identification at the end of 2022.

In 1968, Frank Darby invented a myth that the endling was called Benjamin. The myth was widely circulated in the media, with Wikipedia itself repeating the invention. The thylacine that Darby was referring to was a male at Hobart Zoo. This animal is believed to have died as the result of neglect—locked out of its sheltered sleeping quarters, it was exposed to a rare occurrence of extreme Tasmanian weather: extreme heat during the day and freezing temperatures at night. This thylacine features in the last known motion picture footage of a living specimen: 45 seconds of black-and-white footage showing the thylacine in its enclosure in a clip taken in 1933, by naturalist David Fleay. In the film footage, the thylacine is seen seated, walking around the perimeter of its enclosure, yawning, sniffing the air, scratching itself (in the same manner as a dog), and lying down. Fleay was bitten on the buttock whilst shooting the film. In 2021, a digitally colourised 80-second clip of Fleay's footage of the thylacine was released by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, to mark National Threatened Species Day. The digital colourisation process was based on historic primary and secondary descriptions to ensure an accurate colour match.

Although there had been a conservation movement pressing for the thylacine's protection since 1901, driven in part by the increasing difficulty in obtaining specimens for overseas collections, political difficulties prevented any form of protection coming into force until 1936. Official protection of the species by the Tasmanian government came all too late; it was introduced on 10 July 1936, 59 days before the last known specimen died in captivity.

### Searches and unconfirmed sightings

Between 1967 and 1973, zoologist Jeremy Griffith and dairy farmer James Malley conducted what is regarded as the most intensive search for thylacines ever carried out, including exhaustive surveys along Tasmania's west coast, installation of automatic camera stations, prompt investigations of claimed sightings, and in 1972 the creation of the Thylacine Expeditionary Research Team with Dr. Bob Brown, which concluded without finding any evidence of the thylacine's existence.

The Department of Conservation and Land Management recorded 203 reports of sightings of the thylacine in Western Australia from 1936 to 1998. On the mainland, sightings are most frequently reported in Southern Victoria.

According to the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment, there have been eight unconfirmed thylacine sighting reports between 2016 and 2019, with the latest unconfirmed visual sighting on 25 February 2018.

Since the disappearance and effective extinction of the thylacine, speculation and searches for a living specimen have become a topic of interest to some members of the cryptozoology subculture. The search for the animal has been the subject of books and articles, with many reported sightings that are largely regarded as dubious.

A 2023 study published by Brook et al.. compiles many of the alleged sightings of thylacines in Tasmania throughout the 20th century and claims that, contrary to beliefs that the thylacine went extinct in the 1930s, the Tasmanian thylacine may have actually lasted throughout the 20th century, with a window of extinction between the 1980s and the present day and the likely extinction date being between the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In 1983, the American media mogul Ted Turner offered a \$100,000 reward for proof of the continued existence of the thylacine. In March 2005, Australian news magazine The Bulletin, as part of its 125th anniversary celebrations, offered a \$1.25 million reward for the safe capture of a live thylacine. When the offer closed at the end of June 2005, no one had produced any evidence of the animal's existence. An offer of \$1.75 million has subsequently been offered by a Tasmanian tour operator, Stewart Malcolm.

## Research

Research into thylacines relies heavily on specimens held in museums and other institutions across the world. The number and distribution of these specimens has been recorded in the International Thylacine Specimen Database. As of 2022, 756 specimens are held in 115 museums and university collections in 23 countries. In 2017, a reference library of 159 micrographic images of thylacine hair was jointly produced by CSIRO and Where Light Meets Dark.

### Cloning

The Australian Museum in Sydney began a cloning project in 1999. The goal was to use genetic material from specimens taken and preserved in the early 20th century to clone new individuals and restore the species from extinction. Several molecular biologists dismissed the project as a public relations stunt. In late 2002, the researchers had some success as they were able to extract replicable DNA from the specimens. On 15 February 2005, the museum announced that it was stopping the project. In May 2005, the project was restarted by a group of interested universities and a research institute.

In August 2022, it was announced that the University of Melbourne will partner with Texas-based biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences to attempt to re-create the thylacine using its closest living relative, the fat-tailed dunnart, and return it to Tasmania. The university had recently sequenced the genome of a juvenile thylacine specimen and is establishing a thylacine genetic restoration laboratory.

### DNA sequencing

A draft whole genome sequencing of the thylacine was produced by Feigin et al. (2017) using the DNA extracted from an ethanol-preserved pouch young specimen provided by Museums Victoria. The neonatal development of the thylacine was also reconstructed from preserved pouch young specimens from several museum collections. Researchers used the genome to study aspects of the thylacine's evolution and natural history, including the genetic basis of its convergence with canids, clarifying its evolutionary relationships with other marsupials and examining changes in its population size over time.

The genomic basis of the convergent evolution between the thylacine and grey wolf was further investigated in 2019, with researchers identifying many non-coding genomic regions displaying accelerated rates of evolution, a test for genetic regions evolving under positive selection. In 2021, researchers further identified a link between the convergent skull shapes of the thylacine and wolf, and the previously identified genetic candidates. It was reported that specific groups of skull bones, which develop from a common population of stem cells called neural crest cells, showed strong similarity between the thylacine and wolf and corresponded with the underlying convergent genetic candidates which influence these cells during development.

## Cultural significance

### Official usage

The thylacine has been used extensively as a symbol of Tasmania. The animal is featured on the official Tasmanian coat of arms. It is used in the official logos for the Tasmanian government and the City of Launceston. It is also used on the University of Tasmania's ceremonial mace and the badge of the submarine . Since 1998, it has been prominently displayed on Tasmanian vehicle number plates. The thylacine has appeared in postage stamps from Australia, Equatorial Guinea, and Micronesia.

Since 1996, 7 September (the date in 1936 on which the last known thylacine died) has been commemorated in Australia as National Threatened Species Day.

### In popular culture

The thylacine has become a cultural icon in Australia. The best known illustrations of Thylacinus cynocephalus were those in John Gould's The Mammals of Australia (1845–1863), often copied since its publication and the most frequently reproduced, and given further exposure by Cascade Brewery's appropriation for its label in 1987. The government of Tasmania published a monochromatic reproduction of the same image in 1934, the author Louisa Anne Meredith also copied it for Tasmanian Friends and Foes (1881). The thylacine is the mascot for the Tasmanian cricket team.

In video games, boomerang-wielding Ty the Tasmanian Tiger is the star of his own trilogy during the 2000s. Tiny Tiger, a villain in the popular Crash Bandicoot video game series, is a mutated thylacine. In Valorant, agent Skye has the ability to use a Tasmanian tiger to scout enemies and clear bomb-planting sites.

The animal has made appearance in film and television. Characters in the early 1990s' cartoon Taz-Mania included the neurotic Wendell T. Wolf, the last surviving Tasmanian wolf. The Hunter is a 2011 Australian drama film, based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Julia Leigh. It stars Willem Dafoe, who plays a man hired to track down the Tasmanian tiger. In the 2021 film, Extinct, a thylacine named Burnie, along with a group of other extinct animals, help the movie's main characters travel through time to rescue their species from extinction. In the 2022 science fiction show The Peripheral the Tasmanian tiger is brought back into existence from DNA extracts.

### In Aboriginal tradition

Various Aboriginal Tasmanian names for the thylacine have been recorded, such as coorinna, kanunnah, cab-berr-one-nen-er, loarinna, laoonana, can-nen-ner and lagunta, while kaparunina is used in Palawa kani.

One Nuenonne myth recorded by Jackson Cotton tells of a thylacine pup saving Palana, a spirit boy, from an attack by a giant kangaroo. Palana marked the pup's back with ochre as a mark of its bravery, giving thylacines their stripes. A constellation, "Wurrawana Corinna" (identified as within or near Gemini), was also created as a commemoration of this mythic act of bravery.

The Kunwinjku on mainland Australia have preserved both a name for the thylacine (djankerrk) and an account of its behaviour. A Kunwinjku story tells of two ancestral thylacines hunting a kangaroo by biting at its tail, and the animals later falling from a cliff into a creek and transforming into fish. The thylacines transformed into archerfish, hence archerfish have stripes on their tails.

## See also

- Fauna of Australia
- List of extinct animals of Australia

Extinct carnivorous marsupial from Australasia

Species made extinct by deliberate extirpation efforts


The 3rd Plurinational Legislative Assembly of Bolivia (Spanish: 3° Asamblea Legislativa Plurinacional de Bolivia; ALP) is the current meeting of the legislative branch of the Bolivian government, composed of the Chamber of Senators and the Chamber of Deputies. It convened in La Paz on 3 November 2020, during the final week of Jeanine Áñez's presidency, and will end in 2025. It will meet during all five years of Luis Arce's presidency.

The 2020 general elections decided control of both chambers. In both the Chamber of Deputies and Senate, the Movement for Socialism retained its majority—albeit reduced from the two-thirds supermajority from the 2nd Plurinational Legislative Assembly. This assembly marks the first time women make up the majority of the legislature as a whole at 51.9 percent of parliamentarians. In the Senate, women make up the absolute majority at 55.5 percent of senators, while in the Chamber of Deputies, they reach near gender parity at 46.9 percent of deputies.

This legislature has been characterized by frequent inter-party conflicts and quarrels. The ruling Movement for Socialism failed to attain a supermajority in either chamber—as it had done in the previous assemblies—granting the opposition a higher degree of discretion over decisions requiring the support of two-thirds of legislators. However, amendments to the regulations of both chambers approved by the preceding legislature shortly before this assembly's formal installation abrogated the two-thirds requirement for numerous parliamentary procedures, leading political analysts to note the effective neutralization of the opposition's ability to operate. Subsequent disputes and accusations by the opposition of abuse of parliamentary procedure purportedly perpetrated by the ruling party have resulted in disorderly behavior and even physical violence during legislative sessions regarding the election of members to commissions and the passage of controversial bills.

## History

### Two-thirds controversy

Though the Movement for Socialism (MAS-IPSP) achieved a first-round victory in the 2020 general elections, winning absolute majorities in both the Senate—nineteen seats—and Chamber of Deputies—sixty-six seats—the party fell just shy of attaining a supermajority of two-thirds of the legislators in either chamber, as it had done in the two previous legislative terms. In the Senate, the MAS won twenty-one seats, three short of the twenty-four necessary to achieve a two-thirds majority in that chamber, and in the lower house, it won seventy-five seats; eighty-seven deputies are required to reach a supermajority in the Chamber of Deputies, leaving the MAS twelve seats short. In total, of the 166 seats making up both chambers, the MAS held ninety-six, leaving it fourteen behind of the 110 votes necessary to attain two-thirds in a plenary session. As a result, the MAS was placed in a situation in which it would be forced to negotiate with the opposition on matters requiring two-thirds of the assembly's support, a fact that had not been the case for over a decade, since the opening of the 2010–2015 legislature in January 2010. Political Scientist Franklin Pareja noted that, without two-thirds, the MAS would no longer be able to circumvent legislative debate and pass laws without discussing with the opposition, as it had grown accustomed to doing in previous years. For Pareja, this would hopefully provide for a "healthier" legislature.

In this context, a major controversy arose when on 27 and 28 October 2020, both chambers in the outgoing assembly used the final hours of their term to amend the articles of their general regulations, eliminating the two-thirds threshold for measures such as the modification of parliamentary committees, the agenda for sessions, promotions of certain public and military officials, and the appointment of ambassadors, reducing the requirement to a simple majority. However, measures requiring two-thirds of both chambers as established by the Constitution, such as the appointment of the prosecutor general, the ombudsman, the comptroller, or members of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, remained unchanged.

Outgoing Senator Ciro Zabala (MAS) explained the new rules as "an administrative change" meant to push aside "obstacles" to Luis Arce's mandate. For his part, President-elect Arce endorsed the move, stating that "what our Assembly has done is maintain legality ... and there should be no concern". Nonetheless, the opposition denounced the change. Outgoing Deputy Shirley Franco called it "an affront to democracy. They eliminate the two-thirds to nullify the opposition". At the same time, Carlos Mesa, leader of Civic Community (CC), decried the rule change as an "unacceptable and illegitimate maneuver". Similarly, Creemos leader Luis Fernando Camacho characterized the regulatory amendment as an "outrage", stating: "the MAS will never leave behind its dictatorial impulse". Newspaper Página Siete reported that, in this way, "[the] MAS [has] neutralize[d] the opposition for five years", primarily due to the fact that the ruling party was now capable of closing legislative debate by a simple majority. Political analyst Williams Bascopé also noted that the MAS' ability to change the legislative agenda at will provided for the possibility of opposition legislators entering the assembly without being informed of what would be discussed in that session.

At Arce's inauguration, Mesa and the entire CC caucus left the hemicycle of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly in protest prior to the end of the ceremony. In a press conference, Mesa announced CC's intent to file an appeal with the Plurinational Constitutional Court (TCP), demanding the unconstitutionality of the annulment of the two-thirds requirement. Three days later, the alliance formally presented the TCP with an appeal containing the signatures of all fifty CC legislators. In late November, the TCP rejected the motion on technical grounds, arguing that the coalition had not gone through the proper legal channels in the Legislative Assembly before bringing their case to the court. Two separate appeals filed by Creemos were also declared inadmissible by the TCP. Creemos Senator Centa Rek denounced that the court's rulings demonstrated its "absolute submission" before the government.

### New assembly building

This legislative session saw the completion and inauguration of a new Plurinational Assembly headquarters to replace the previous Legislative Palace. The decision to establish a new building was sanctioned by Law N° 313, which also authorized the erection of a new executive building, the Casa Grande del Pueblo, completed in 2018. Construction began in 2016 under the charge of the firm Asociación Accidental Constructoras Bolivianas (CONSTRUBOL). By the end, the total State investment in the project amounted to Bs473.2 million.

The new legislature covers 44,000m2 with nine underground levels and twenty above-ground floors, allowing it to be seen from anywhere in La Paz and El Alto. It is topped by a cubic structure containing the hemicycle of the Chamber of Senators on levels fourteen and fifteen and the Chamber of Deputies on levels seventeen through twenty. The cube measures a length of thirty-six meters, meant to represent the thirty-six nationally recognized indigenous nations. Additionally, the various offices and corridors are adorned with motifs and artwork from all of these groups.

The new building was inaugurated on 2 August 2020 with the presence of the president, vice president, and most legislators of the ruling party. In his speech, President Arce declared that the legislature symbolized "a new stage" in the country's history. Vice President David Choquehuanca pointed to its establishment as a measure of "decolonized thinking" in the country. Likewise, President of the Chamber of Deputies Freddy Mamani stated that, with the inauguration of the new infrastructure, Bolivia entered a new era, definitively leaving behind the Republic of Bolivia that was superseded by the Plurinational State through the passage of the 2009 Constitution.

Neither CC nor Creemos participated in the inauguration of the new building. In a statement, CC characterized its establishment as "an affront to the country" that wastes economic resources in the midst of a health crisis in order to "satisfy the megalomania of Evo Morales". Senator Rek stated that the decision of its caucus not to attend was due to the fact it had "nothing to celebrate ... because we are cut in our rights and legislative functions, and they do not allow us to participate and influence the laws that are approved".

### Defection in the opposition

#### Ethics Commission I

While the MAS lay three votes away from reaching two-thirds in the Senate, the daily El Deber noted that swaying that many opposition senators to break ranks would be "almost impossible". However, in the Chamber of Deputies, with its larger pool of possible defectors, the situation was different. Outgoing Deputy Amílcar Barral stated that, while it would be difficult, he "would not be surprised if ... some legislators from Civic Community and Creemos ... betray their parties and go to support the MAS". He pointed out that this had previously occurred with some senators and deputies in the previous two assemblies.

The first instance of such an occurrence came on 28 January 2021, when Edwin Bazán, head of the Creemos caucus in the Chamber of Deputies, announced the alliance's expulsion of four of its deputies—Tito Caero, Runy Callaú, Sandra Paz, and Omar Rueda—for what he described as "moral turpitude". The decision came due to the events of a month prior, in which the four expelled deputies presented Rueda as a nominee to the Ethics Commission against Bazán, who was nominated by the rest of the Creemos caucus. With MAS support, Rueda was elected to the commission, while Bazán was not taken into account. Bazán denounced that, in this way, the MAS achieved a majority on the commission, with three of its own deputies and one dissident to the two of CC, a fact he indicated they would use to intimidate the opposition with sanctions and legal processes. As a result, Bazán announced his alliance's intent to file a lawsuit with the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) for political transfuge in order to regain the seat. In response, Rueda affirmed that neither he nor his compatriots were allied to the MAS but that they did not hold "favoritism to anyone". He further outlined that his expulsion was not valid because Creemos was not a national political party but, instead, remained a political alliance and, as such, did not have registered members to expel. MAS Deputy Estefanía Morales pointed out that Bazán himself and other Creemos deputies had run in the annulled 2019 elections as members of CC and later joined Creemos for the 2020 election. She went on to characterize the alliance's disagreements as "internal issues that must be resolved in their caucus". On 1 February 2022, the TSE rejected Creemos' complaint.

All of the defecting parliamentarians represent Santa Cruz and are members of Solidarity Civic Unity (UCS), a component party of the Creemos alliance that supported the presidential campaign of Camacho in 2020 and is led by Santa Cruz Mayor Jhonny Fernández. They make up the entire bloc of UCS members that were elected as titular deputies alongside four substitute deputies and one substitute senator—Fernández's daughter, Paola—as representatives of the party. Creemos Deputy José Carlos Gutiérrez of Santa Cruz contended that the strategy of the MAS was to achieve the suspension of four incumbents in order to allow their UCS substitutes to take the seats. On 6 November, one of these substitute deputies, José Luis Durán, also broke with Creemos and joined the ranks of the dissidents. With the departure of five legislators from UCS, criticism was raised against Fernández. In response, the Santa Cruz mayor assured that he has "no alliance with the MAS" but also, with the elections over, "no alliance with Creemos" either. In terms of the disunity in Creemos, he qualified Camacho as wholly responsible as party leader for any disagreements within his organization.

#### Chamber of Deputies Directorate I

Tensions over the defection of opposition legislators came to a head in November 2021 on the occasion of the renewal of the Chamber of Deputies' directorate, a body made up of the president, first and second vice presidents, and first through fourth secretaries, of which the second vice presidency and third and fourth secretariats correspond to the opposition as outlined in the chamber's general regulations. On behalf of CC, Carlos Alarcón announced Enrique Urquidi and Walter Villagra, respectively, as their nominees for second vice president and third secretary. However, on 6 November, CC faced an internal crisis when two of its deputies, Edwin Rosas and Keyla Ortiz, declared themselves candidates for these positions. Additionally, the four Creemos dissidents rejected their caucus' nomination of Oscar Michel to the fourth secretariat, instead promoting the continuation of incumbent secretary Sandra Paz in the position. Amid threats and shouts, chamber president Freddy Mamani delayed the vote in order to allow the opposition to reach a consensus.

As the opposition handled its most recent crisis, similar fissures occurred within the MAS caucus, though to a lesser extent. Though Mamani sought a second term as president of the lower house, he failed to attain the nomination of the MAS' La Paz caucus, with Hernán Durán winning the vote by a margin of twenty-five to sixteen. However, Durán's nomination faced pushback from representatives of other departments, with MAS legislators from Beni, Chuquisaca, Pando, and Tarija coalescing around Jerges Mercado, who was nominated by the Santa Cruz caucus. Unlike the opposition, however, the MAS' disagreements remained internal, with Mamani being ratified as a consensus candidate.

While the MAS managed to resolve its disagreements semi-magnanimously, the opposition's disputes continued much more openly, with CC electing to publicly expel both defecting deputies from its ranks. In order to block the election, rescheduled for the morning of 7 November, the opposition held a vigil in the Chamber of Deputies the night prior. To circumvent this, the MAS moved its members to the former Legislative Palace—out of use since the inauguration of a new headquarters in August—and installed the session without the presence of the opposition. Amid protests, Mamani granted the minority parties a twenty-five-minute stay, after which the session began again with their presence. In what Opinión described as "embarrassing" and Los Tiempos called a "scandal", the directive elections were carried out on 7 November. The vote took place amid an atmosphere of screams, insults, pushing, and shoving; at one point, deputies poured water on each other while others tore up their ballots denouncing a "legislative coup". The final result was the reelection of Mamani to the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies, with MAS deputies taking the first vice presidency and first and second secretariats. The dissident Rosas was elected second vice president while Paz continued as fourth secretary. Ortiz was not chosen, with the position of third secretary being granted to Villagra, allowing for one opposition deputy in the chamber's directive. Why the MAS elected to ratify Villagra as third secretary was never clarified. With the effective adhesion of two deputies from CC and four from Creemos, the MAS now requires eight parliamentarians to reach two-thirds in the assembly: five deputies and three senators. In view of this, both opposition caucuses assured that the amount of possible "turncoats" within their parties had been exhausted. For Creemos, Deputy Khaline Moreno reported that "we are more united than ever" after the removal of some of its members. Likewise, Luciana Campero, Rosas' substitute, guaranteed that, of the seventy-eight CC deputies and their substitute, the remaining seventy-six had reached full consensus.

According to political analyst Hugo San Martín, the relative ease with which the MAS achieves the defection of opposition parliamentarians stems from the fact that "ideological parties" have become "practically non-existent" since the collapse of the traditional political parties in the early 2000s. San Martín asserts that "opposition parties are generated at the influx of elections", leading to "improvised people, who come to parliament and are free thinkers". Political analyst Gregorio Lanza agreed, stating that the co-option of opposition deputies into the MAS had origins in the "fundamentally electoral" formation of the opposition, established for purposes of running in elections and "not united by ideas and vision of the country". He also pointed to the general issue of corruption in the country as a compounding factor. For CC Deputy Toribia Lero, instances of political transfuge result in the "weakening of the little democracy that remains in the country" by keeping the legislature "submissive and obedient". On the other hand, Vice Minister Jorge Silva—a member of the MAS—argues that the opposition "cannot blame the MAS" because it "is going to make the most advisable political decision" when presented with the opportunity.

The agitation of the deputies following the election carried into the following day when President Arce delivered his management report after one year in office. The majority of his speech was largely drowned out by shouts for and against him by different legislators, with some members of the opposition raising banners and blowing whistles in protest. Shortly after the session, MAS deputy Héctor Arce accused his colleague from Creemos, Tatiana Áñez, of grabbing and scratching his neck when he tried to stop her from moving to the front to interrupt the president. She, in turn, accused him of grabbing her arm and punching her in the stomach.

### Sessions shutting out opposition

#### Military promotions

In December 2021, the Senate attempted to address two draft regulations related to the Armed Forces. The first was Chamber Resolution 004/2021–2022, ratifying a series of military promotions issued by President Arce. The second was Chamber Resolution 005/2021–2022, which ratified the promotions of military personnel that occurred in 1989 and 1990 but precluded those issued in 1987 and 1988. Such laws necessitated the support of two-thirds of the legislators present. The opposition refused to approve the regulations, stating that they contained payroll modifications that contravened the Organic Law of the Armed Forces. They asked that the relevant documents be reviewed to ensure that they were in accordance with the list of promotions originally sent to the Senate in 2019. On 21 December, the MAS attempted twice in vain to install a reserved session to approve the list of promotions sent by the executive. In both cases, the ruling party achieved twenty-two votes in favor—the entire MAS caucus plus one unidentified opposition senator—failing to reach the required twenty-four vote majority by just two votes. As a result, the issue was postponed until January of the following year.

The 43rd Regular Session of the Senate was scheduled for 9:00 a.m. on 20 January 2022. On that occasion, four CC senators—Andrea Barrientos, Javier Martínez, Daly Santa María, and Fernando Vaca—ran late for various reasons. Upon arriving, they were informed that in their absence, the MAS had achieved the necessary two-thirds to install a reserved session, and they were thus prohibited from entering the hemicycle. Barrientos decried the session as "forced and illegitimate", pointing out that no part of the Senate Regulations establish that senators may be precluded from entering a reserved session once it has begun. Senator Santa María stated that she and her colleagues had arrived at or around 9:20 a.m. but had nonetheless been locked out of the Senate despite having a half-hour grace period. Given the absence of the four opposition senators, the MAS passed the questioned military promotion regulations with the support of two-thirds of the legislators present. Following the session, President of the Senate Andrónico Rodríguez assured that no irregularities had occurred. He pointed out that one MAS senator had also been excluded from the session for the same reason.

#### Ethics Commission II

The following month, a similar situation occurred in the Chamber of Deputies. On 17 February 2022, the chamber installed a session to renew the membership of the Ethics Commission. Though majorities in both CC and Creemos presented their own lists of candidates, dissidents from both blocs presented themselves instead. Of these was Keyla Ortiz, the only opposition dissident who failed to gain a position on the Chamber of Deputies' directorate the previous year. Deputy Carlos Alarcón denounced that for this, the MAS "owed [her] a favor" and that they intended to elect her to the commission, though the ruling party denied that that was the case. Regardless, the session quickly devolved into protests, shouts, and shoves. Among the complainants was Deputy José Carlos Gutiérrez of Creemos. He denounced that in the previous year, most of the twenty-seven complaints sent to the commission were against members of the MAS, but they were all rejected with the support of the dissident Omar Rueda. In contrast, all complaints against opposition deputies were accepted. This accusation provoked a shouting match between Gutiérrez and Rueda, in which the latter challenged Gutiérrez to a brawl: "Let's go outside, let's go outside. I'm going to teach you respect ...". In another instance, Deputy Luciana Campero of CC denounced that her MAS colleague Gloria Callizaya had grabbed her from behind while she was protesting at the front of the hemicycle. The lack of order forced President Mamani to suspend the session for a later date.

The session reconvened on 21 February in a process condemned as "rigged" by the opposition. Alarcón denounced that its installation had been called just fifteen minutes in advance, making it impossible for a large part of the opposition to arrive from their respective departments. In response, Deputy Gualberto Arispe of the MAS noted that the previous session had only been intermediately suspended and could thus have been reinstated "at any moment". The few present opposition legislators boycotted the session in protest, leaving the MAS to approve the conformation of the Ethics Commission. No members of the opposition were selected, with dissidents Ortiz of CC and Caero of Creemos being elected to the commission.

### Ombudsman election

The Constitution delegates the task of appointing a new ombudsman to the Legislative Assembly. Crucially, the selection process necessitates two-thirds support from both chambers of the legislature; that is, the MAS could not elect a new official without opposition support. In January 2019, incumbent ombudsman David Tezanos Pinto resigned, leaving Nadia Cruz as the acting authority, a position that by 2022 she had maintained for more than three years. Cruz's tenure had been criticized by the opposition, who alleged that she carried a partisan bias in favor of the MAS. Since the inauguration of Arce, they had pushed for the legislature to call an election to appoint a new authority.

On 25 February 2022, the MAS presented a draft bill to initiate the selection and appointment process of the ombudsman. In a marathon session on 5 March, the majority-MAS Mixed Commission of the Legislative Constitution approved the regulations to initiate the selection process. Although the MAS took into account some adjustments suggested by the opposition, they were nonetheless criticized for presenting a draft regulation that gave the Mixed Commission complete control over the pre-selection of prospective candidates. Legal analysts agreed that since the MAS controlled the commission, it would only approve MAS-aligned candidates to be presented before the full legislature.

On 9 March, the Senate and Chamber of Deputies installed a legislative session to approve the regulations and issue the call for a new ombudsman. As soon as the session began, CC Senator Silvia Salame of Chuquisaca raised a preliminary motion to establish that the regulation face the approval of two-thirds of the Legislative Assembly. Salame argued that since the Constitution states that the election of the ombudsman requires two-thirds support, necessarily the regulation must also be approved by that amount. Vice President Choquehuanca initially rejected this and asked that the draft bill be read. However, Salame insisted that parliamentary rules dictated that her motion be considered first. To this, Choquehuanca conceded, and he put the motion up for consideration.

The subsequent events were described as "embarrassing" by multiple media outlets. The debate on Salame's motion erupted into general disorder, with shouts and whistles, as well as physical confrontations between legislators. In one incident, Deputy Nogales of CC entered into an argument with Deputy Tania Paniagua of the MAS in which Senator Barrientos of CC also intervened to separate the two, culminating in Nogales being thrown to the ground. Barrientos subsequently made her way to the front of the hemicycle to demand that the vice president suspend the session, but was also met with blows by Paniagua and two other assemblywomen. The quarrel forced Choquehuanca to immediately close the session for the day and summon caucus leaders to impose order over their subordinate parliamentarians.

Together with the vice president, caucus leaders met to discuss a solution to the legislative impasse on 14 March. After some hours of negotiations, leaders from all three caucuses announced that they had reached consensus and would reconvene the legislative session the following day. The amended draft regulation excluded multiple provisions, including those that expanded the power of the Mixed Commission to pre-select candidates. Alarcón of CC and Gutiérrez of Creemos both assured that their caucuses would support the bill. The following day, legislators unanimously passed the bill calling for the election of a new ombudsman.

## Party summary

## Leadership

The Bolivian Constitution designates the vice president as president of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly. The Constitution also calls for a president of the Chamber of Senators and of the Chamber of Deputies, to serve as the presiding officer over their respective bodies. Each body's general regulations defines a Chamber Directive Board elected each year from among its full members by an absolute majority of those present, respecting gender equity criteria. In the Senate, this directive is composed of a president, first vice president, second vice president, first secretary, second secretary, and third secretary. General regulations assert that the presidency, first vice presidency, and the first and third secretariats correspond to the majority bloc; and the second vice presidency and second secretariat correspond to the minority bloc. In the Chamber of Deputies, the directive is composed of a president, first vice president, second vice president, first secretary, second secretary, third secretary, and fourth secretary. General regulations assert that the presidency, first vice presidency, and the first and second secretariats correspond to the majority bloc; and the second vice presidency and the third and fourth secretariats correspond to the minority bloc.

## Composition

### Senate

All thirty-six seats and thirty-six substitutes were filled by election in October 2020. This legislative term marks the first time in Bolivian history in which women make up a majority of the Senate's composition. Of the thirty-six seats, twenty correspond to women, that is, 55.5 percent of the chamber. In individual party caucuses, women make up ten of the twenty-one MAS senators (47.6 percent), eight of the eleven from CC (72.7 percent), and two of the four from Creemos (fifty percent). This result is due to the fact that the three political organizations that achieved Senate representation predominantly placed women at the top of their electoral lists.

Thirty-four titular senators were sworn in on 3 November 2020, with the remaining two, Hilarión Mamani and Pedro Benjamín Vargas, being sworn in the following day. All but one of the thirty-six substitute senators were sworn in six days later on 9 November. Zvonko Matkovic did not arrive to take the oath until 19 November.

### Chamber of Deputies

All 130 seats as well as 129 substitutes were filled by election in October 2020. The titular deputies were sworn in on 3 November 2020 and their substitutes took office two days later on 5 November.

## See also

- 2020 Bolivian general election (elections leading to this Assembly)
- 2025 Bolivian general election (elections during this Assembly, leading to the next Assembly)

2020–2025 meeting of Bolivian legislature

Members of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly


Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia (Russian: О́льга Алекса́ндровна; – 24 November 1960) was the youngest child of Emperor Alexander III of Russia and younger sister of Emperor Nicholas II.

Olga was raised at the Gatchina Palace outside Saint Petersburg. Olga's relationship with her mother, Empress Marie, the daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark, was strained and distant from childhood. In contrast, she and her father were close. He died when she was 12, and her brother Nicholas became emperor. In 1901, at 19, she married Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg, who was privately believed by family and friends to be homosexual. Their marriage of 15 years remained unconsummated, and Peter at first refused Olga's request for a divorce. The couple led separate lives and their marriage was eventually annulled by the Emperor in October 1916. The following month Olga married cavalry officer Nikolai Kulikovsky, with whom she had fallen in love several years before. During the First World War, Olga served as an army nurse and was awarded a medal for personal gallantry. At the downfall of the Romanovs in the Russian Revolution of 1917, she fled with her husband and children to Crimea, where they lived under the threat of assassination. Her brother Nicholas and his family were shot and bayoneted to death by revolutionaries.

Olga escaped revolutionary Russia with her second husband and their two sons in February 1920. They joined her mother, the Dowager Empress, in Denmark. In exile, Olga acted as companion and secretary to her mother and was often sought out by Romanov impostors who claimed to be her dead relatives. She met Anna Anderson, the best-known impostor, in Berlin in 1925. After the Dowager Empress's death in 1928, Olga and her husband purchased a dairy farm in Ballerup, near Copenhagen. She led a simple life: raising her two sons, working on the farm and painting. During her lifetime, she painted over 2,000 works of art, which provided extra income for both her family and the charitable causes she supported.

In 1948, feeling threatened by Joseph Stalin's regime, Olga and her immediate family relocated to a farm in Campbellville, Ontario, Canada. With advancing age, Olga and her husband moved to a bungalow near Cooksville, Ontario. Colonel Kulikovsky died there in 1958. Two years later, as her health deteriorated, Olga moved with friends to a small apartment in East Toronto. She died aged 78, seven months after her older sister, Xenia. At the end of her life and afterwards, Olga was widely labelled the last Grand Duchess of Imperial Russia.

## Early life

Olga was the youngest daughter of Emperor Alexander III and his consort, Empress Marie, formerly Princess Dagmar of Denmark. She was born in the purple (i.e., during her father's reign) on 13 June 1882 in the Peterhof Palace, west of central Saint Petersburg. Her birth was announced by a traditional 101-gun salute from the ramparts of the Peter and Paul Fortress, and similar salutes throughout the Russian Empire. Her mother, advised by her sister, Alexandra, Princess of Wales, placed Olga in the care of an English nanny, Elizabeth Franklin.

The Russian imperial family was a frequent target for assassins, so for safety reasons the Grand Duchess was raised at the country palace of Gatchina, about 50 miles (80 km) west of Saint Petersburg. Although Olga and her siblings lived in a palace, conditions in the nursery were modest, even Spartan. They slept on hard camp beds, rose at dawn, washed in cold water, and ate a simple porridge for breakfast.

Olga left Gatchina for the first time in 1888 when the imperial family visited the Caucasus. On 29 October, their return train approached the small town of Borki at speed. Olga's parents and their four older children were eating lunch in the dining-car when the train lurched violently and came off the rails. The carriage was torn open; the heavy iron roof caved in, and the wheels and floor of the car were sliced off. Survivors claimed the Tsar crawled out from beneath the crushed roof, and held it up with "a Herculean effort" so that the others could escape; a story subsequently considered unbelievable. There were 21 fatalities. Empress Marie helped tend the wounded and made makeshift bandages from her own clothes. An official investigation found that the crash was an accident, but it was widely and falsely believed that two bombs had been planted on the line.

The Grand Duchess and her siblings were taught at home by private tutors. Subjects included history, geography, Russian, English, and French, as well as drawing and dancing. Physical activities such as equestrianism were taught at an early age, and the children became expert riders.

The family was deeply religious. While Christmas and Easter were times of celebration and extravagance, Lent was strictly observed—meat, dairy products and any form of entertainment were avoided.

Empress Marie was reserved and formal with Olga as a child, and their relationship remained a difficult one. But Olga, her father, and the youngest of her brothers, Michael, had a close relationship. Together, the three frequently went on hikes in the Gatchina forests, where the Tsar taught Olga and Michael woodsmanship. Olga said of her father:

> My father was everything to me. Immersed in work as he was, he always spared that daily half-hour. ... once my father showed me a very old album full of most exciting pen and ink sketches of an imaginary city called Mopsopolis, inhabited by Mopses [pug dogs]. He showed it to me in secret, and I was thrilled to have him share his own childhood secrets with me.

Family holidays were taken in the summer at Peterhof and with Olga's grandparents in Denmark. However, in 1894, Olga's father became increasingly ill, and the annual trip to Denmark was cancelled. On 13 November 1894, he died at the age of 49. The emotional impact on Olga, aged 12, was traumatic, and her eldest brother, the new Tsar Nicholas II, was propelled into a role for which, in Olga's later opinion, he was ill-prepared.

## Court life

Olga was due to enter society in mid-1899 at the age of 17, but after the death of her brother George at the age of 28, her first official public appearance was delayed by a year until 1900. She hated the experience, and later told her official biographer Ian Vorres, "I felt as though I were an animal in a cage—exhibited to the public for the first time." From 1901 Olga served as the honorary Commander-in-Chief of the 12th Akhtyrsky Hussar Regiment [ru] of the Imperial Russian Army. The Akhtyrsky Hussars, famous for their victory over Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Kulm in 1813, wore a distinctive brown dolman.

By 1900, Olga, aged 18, was being escorted to the theatre and opera by a distant cousin, Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg, a member of the Russian branch of the House of Oldenburg. He was 14 years her senior and known for his passion for literature and gambling. Peter asked for Olga's hand in marriage the following year, a proposal that took the Grand Duchess completely by surprise: "I was so taken aback that all I could say was 'thank you'," she later explained.

Their engagement, announced in May 1901, surprised family and friends, as Peter had shown no prior interest in women, and members of society assumed he was homosexual. At the age of 19, on , Olga married 33-year-old Peter. After the celebration the newlyweds left for the Oldenburg palace on the Field of Mars. Olga spent her wedding night alone in tears, while her husband left for a gambling club, returning the next morning. Their marriage remained unconsummated, and Olga suspected that Peter's ambitious mother had pushed him into proposing. Biographer Patricia Phenix thought Olga may have accepted his proposal to gain independence from her own mother, the Dowager Empress, or to avoid marriage into a foreign court. The couple initially lived with her in-laws Alexander Petrovich and Eugénie Maximilianovna of Oldenburg. The arrangement was not harmonious, as Peter's parents, both well known for their philanthropic work, berated their only son for his laziness. Olga took a dislike to her mother-in-law; although Eugénie, a close friend of the Dowager Empress, gave her daughter-in-law many gifts, including a ruby tiara that Napoleon had given as a present to Joséphine de Beauharnais. A few weeks after the wedding Olga and her husband travelled to Biarritz, France, from where they sailed to Sorrento, Italy, on a yacht loaned to them by King Edward VII of Great Britain.

On their return to Russia, they settled into a 200-room palace (the former Baryatinsky mansion) at 46 Sergievskaya Street (present-day Tchaikovsky Street [ru]) in Saint Petersburg. (The palace, a gift from Tsar Nicholas II to his sister, now houses the Saint Petersburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry.) Olga and Peter had separate bedrooms at opposite ends of the building, and the Grand Duchess had her own art studio. Unhappy in her marriage, she fell into bouts of depression that caused her to lose her hair, forcing her to wear a wig. It took two years for her hair to regrow.

Near the Oldenburgs' estate, Ramon in Voronezh province, Olga had her own villa, called "Olgino" after the local town. She subsidized the village school out of her own pocket, and established a hospital. Her daughter-in-law later wrote, "She tried to help every needy person as far as her strengths and means would permit." At the hospital she learned basic medical treatment and proper care from the local doctor. She exemplified her strong Orthodox faith by creating religious icons, which she distributed to the charitable endeavours she supported. At Ramon, Olga and Peter enjoyed walking through the nearby woods and hunted wolves together. He was kind and considerate towards her, but she longed for love, a normal marriage, and children.

In April 1903, during a royal military review at Pavlovsk Palace, Olga's brother Michael introduced her to a Blue Cuirassier Guards officer, Nikolai Kulikovsky. Olga and Kulikovsky began to see each other and exchanged letters regularly. The same year, at the age of 22, she confronted her husband and asked for a divorce, which he refused – with the qualification that he might reconsider after seven years. Nevertheless, Oldenburg appointed Kulikovsky as an aide-de-camp, and allowed him to live in the same residence as Oldenburg and the Grand Duchess on Sergievskaya Street. The relationship between Kulikovsky and the Grand Duchess was not public, but gossip about their romance spread through society.

From 1904 to 1906 Duke Peter had an appointment to a military post in Tsarskoye Selo, a complex of palaces just south of Saint Petersburg. In Tsarskoye Selo, the Grand Duchess grew close to her brother Nicholas and his family, who lived at the Alexander Palace near her own residence. Olga prized her connection to the Tsar's four daughters. From 1906 to 1914, Olga took her nieces to parties and engagements in Saint Petersburg, without their parents, every weekend throughout the winter. She especially took a liking to the youngest of Nicholas's daughters, her god-daughter Anastasia, whom she called Shvipsik ("little one"). Through her brother and sister-in-law, Olga met Rasputin, a self-styled holy man who purported to have healing powers. Although she made no public criticisms of Rasputin's association with the imperial family, she was unconvinced of his supposed powers and privately disliked him. As Olga grew close to her brother's family, her relationship with her other surviving brother, Michael, deteriorated. To her and Nicholas's horror, Michael eloped with his mistress, a twice-divorced commoner, and communication between Michael and the rest of the family essentially ceased.

Public unrest over the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 and demands for political reform increased in the early years of the twentieth century. At Epiphany 1905, a band of revolutionaries fired live rounds at the Winter Palace from the Peter and Paul Fortress. Olga and the Dowager Empress were showered with glass splinters from a smashed window, but remained unharmed. Three weeks later, on "Bloody Sunday" (), Cossack troops killed at least 92 people during a demonstration, and a month later Olga's uncle, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, was assassinated. Uprisings occurred throughout the country, and parts of the navy mutinied. Olga supported the appointment of the liberal Pyotr Stolypin as prime minister, and he embarked on a programme of gradual reform, but in 1911 he was assassinated. The public unrest, Michael's elopement, and Olga's sham marriage placed her under strain, and in 1912, while visiting England with her mother, she suffered a nervous breakdown. Tsarina Alexandra was also unwell with fatigue, concerned by the poor health of her hemophiliac son, Alexei. Olga stood in for the Tsarina at public events and accompanied her brother on a tour of the interior, while the Tsarina remained at home.

## War and revolution

On 1 August 1914, with World War I looming, Olga's regiment, the Akhtyrsky Hussars, appeared at an Imperial Review before her and the Tsar at Krasnoe Selo. Kulikovsky volunteered for service with the Hussars, who were stationed on the frontlines in Southwestern Russia. With the Grand Duchess's prior medical knowledge from the village of Olgino, she started work as a nurse at an under-staffed Red Cross hospital in Rovno, near to where her own regiment was stationed. During the war, she came under heavy Austrian fire while attending the regiment at the front. Nurses rarely worked so close to the frontline and consequently, she was awarded the Order of St. George by General Mannerheim, who later became President of Finland. As the Russians lost ground to the Central Powers, Olga's hospital was moved eastwards to Kiev, and Michael returned to Russia from exile abroad.

In 1916, Tsar Nicholas II annulled the marriage between Duke Peter Alexandrovich and the Grand Duchess, allowing her to marry Colonel Kulikovsky. The service was performed on 16 November 1916 in the Kievo-Vasilievskaya Church on Triokhsviatitelskaya (Three Saints Street) in Kiev. The only guests were the Dowager Empress, Olga's brother-in-law Grand Duke Alexander, four officers of the Akhtyrsky Regiment, and two of Olga's fellow nurses from the hospital in Kiev.

During the war, internal tensions and economic deprivation in Russia continued to mount and revolutionary sympathies grew. After Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in early 1917, many members of the Romanov dynasty, including Nicholas and his immediate family, were detained under house arrest. In search of safety, the Dowager Empress, Grand Duke Alexander, and Grand Duchess Olga travelled to Crimea by special train, where they were joined by Olga's sister (Alexander's wife) Grand Duchess Xenia. They lived at Alexander's estate, Ay-Todor, about 12 miles (19 km) from Yalta, where they were placed under house arrest by the local forces. On 12 August 1917, her first child and son, Tikhon Nikolaevich was born during their virtual imprisonment. He was named after Tikhon of Zadonsk, the Saint venerated near the Grand Duchess's estate at Olgino.

The Romanovs isolated in Crimea knew little of the fate of the Tsar and his family. Nicholas, Alexandra, and their children were originally held at their official residence, the Alexander Palace, but the Provisional government under Alexander Kerensky relocated them to Tobolsk, Siberia. In February 1918, most of the imperial family at Ay-Todor was moved to another estate at Djulber, where Grand Dukes Nicholas and Peter were already under house arrest. Olga and her husband were left at Ay-Todor. The entire Romanov family in Crimea was condemned to death by the Yalta revolutionary council, but the executions were delayed by political rivalry between the Yalta and Sevastopol Soviets. By March 1918, the Central Power of Germany had advanced on Crimea, and the revolutionary guards were replaced by German ones. In November 1918, the German forces were informed that their nation had lost the war, and they evacuated homewards. Allied forces took over the Crimean ports, in support of the loyalist White Army, which allowed the surviving members of the Romanov family time to escape abroad. The Dowager Empress and, at her insistence, most of her family and friends were evacuated by the British warship HMS Marlborough. Nicholas II had already been shot dead and the family assumed, correctly, that his wife and children had also been killed.

Olga and her husband refused to leave Russia and decided to move to the Caucasus, which the White Army had cleared of revolutionary Bolsheviks. An imperial bodyguard, Timofei Yatchik, guided them to his hometown, the large Cossack village of Novominskaya. In a rented five-room farmhouse there, Olga gave birth to her second son, Guri Nikolaevich, on 23 April 1919. He was named after a friend of hers, Guri Panayev, who was killed while serving in the Akhtyrsky Regiment during World War I. In November 1919, the family set out on what would be their last journey through Russia. Just ahead of revolutionary troops, they escaped to Novorossiysk and took refuge in the residence of the Danish consul, Thomas Schytte, who informed them of the Dowager Empress's safe arrival in Denmark. After a brief stay with the consul, the family was shipped to a refugee camp on the island of Büyükada in the Dardanelles Strait near Istanbul, Turkey, where Olga, her husband and children shared three rooms with eleven other adults. After two weeks, they were evacuated to Belgrade in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes where she was visited by Prince Regent Alexander. Alexander offered the Grand Duchess and her family a permanent home, but Olga was summoned to Denmark by her mother. On Good Friday 1920, Olga and her family arrived in Copenhagen. They lived with the Dowager Empress, at first at the Amalienborg Palace and then at the royal estate of Hvidøre, where Olga acted as her mother's secretary and companion. It was a difficult arrangement at times. The Dowager Empress insisted on having Olga at her beck and call and found Olga's young sons too boisterous. Having never reconciled with the idea of her daughter's marriage to a commoner, she was cold towards Kulikovsky, rarely allowing him in her presence. At formal functions, Olga was expected to accompany her mother alone.

## Anna Anderson

In 1925, Olga and Colonel Kulikovsky travelled to Berlin to meet Anna Anderson, who claimed to be Olga's niece, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. Anderson had attempted suicide in Berlin in 1920, which Olga later called "probably the only indisputable fact in the whole story". Anderson claimed that with the help of a man named Tchaikovsky she had escaped from revolutionary Russia via Bucharest, where she had given birth to his child. Olga thought the story "palpably false", since Anderson made no attempt to approach Queen Marie of Romania (first cousin of both of Anastasia's parents), during her entire alleged time in Bucharest. Olga said:

> If Mrs. Anderson had indeed been Anastasia, Queen Marie would have recognized her on the spot. ... Marie would never have been shocked at anything, and a niece of mine would have known it. ... There is not one tittle of genuine evidence in the story. The woman keeps away from the one relative who would have been the first to recognize her, understand her desperate plight, and sympathize with her.

Anderson stated she was in Berlin to inform Princess Irene of Prussia (sister of Tsarina Alexandra and cousin of Tsar Nicholas II) of her survival. Olga commented, "[Princess Irene] was one of the most straightlaced women in her generation. My niece would have known that her condition would have indeed have shocked [her]."

Olga met Anderson, who was being treated for tuberculosis, at a nursing home. Of the visit Olga later said:

> My beloved Anastasia was fifteen when I saw her for the last time in the summer of 1916. She would have been twenty-four in 1925. I thought Mrs. Anderson looked much older than that. Of course, one had to make allowances for a very long illness ... All the same, my niece's features could not possibly have altered out of all recognition. The nose, the mouth, the eyes were all different. ... As soon as I sat down by that bed in the Mommsen Nursing Home, I knew I was looking at a stranger. ... I had left Denmark with something of a hope in my heart. I left Berlin with all hope extinguished.

Olga also said she was dismayed that Anderson spoke only German and showed no sign of knowing either English or Russian, while Anastasia spoke both those languages fluently and was ignorant of German. Nevertheless, Olga remained sympathetic towards Anderson, perhaps because she thought that she was ill rather than deliberately deceitful. Olga later explained:

> ... she did not strike me as an out-and-out impostor. Her brusqueness warred against it. A cunning impostor would have done all she could to ingratiate herself ... But Mrs. Anderson's manner would have put anyone off. My own conviction is that it all started with some unscrupulous people who hoped they might lay their hands on at least a share of the fabulous and utterly non-existent Romanov fortune ... I had a feeling she was 'briefed,' as it were, but far from perfectly. The mistakes she made could not all be attributed to lapses of memory. For instance, she had a scar on one of her fingers and she kept telling everybody that it had been crushed because of a footman shutting the door of a landau too quickly. And at once I remembered the real incident. It was Marie, her elder sister, who got her hand hurt rather badly, and it did not happen in a carriage but on board the imperial train. Obviously someone, having heard something of the incident, had passed a garbled version of it to Mrs. Anderson.

Conceivably, Olga was initially either open to the possibility that Anderson was Anastasia or unable to make up her mind. Anderson's biographer and supporter Peter Kurth claimed that Olga wrote to the Danish ambassador, Herluf Zahle, at the end of October 1925: "My feeling is that she is not the one she believes—but one can't say she is not as a fact". Within a month she had made up her mind. She wrote to a friend, "There is no resemblance, and she is undoubtedly not A." Olga sent Anderson a scarf and five letters, which were used by Anderson's supporters to claim that Olga recognized Anderson as Anastasia. Olga later said she sent the gift and letters "out of pity", and called the claims "a complete fabrication". When Olga refused to recognize Anderson as Anastasia publicly and published a statement denying any resemblance in a Danish newspaper, Anderson's supporters, Harriet von Rathlef and Gleb Botkin, claimed that Olga was acting on instructions received from her sister Xenia by telegram, which Olga denied in private letters and sworn testimony. She told her official biographer, "I never received any such telegram." The telegram was never produced by Anderson's supporters, and it has never been found among any of the papers relating to the case. Xenia said,

> [Anderson's supporters] told the most terrible lies about my sister and me ... I was supposed to have sent Olga a telegram saying, 'On no account recognize Anastasia.' That was a fantasy. I never sent any telegrams, or gave my sister any advice about her visit to Berlin. We were all apprehensive about the wisdom of her going, but only because we feared it would be used for propaganda purposes by the claimant's supporters. ... My sister Olga felt sorry for that poor woman. She was kind to her, and because of her kindness of heart, her opinions and motives have been misrepresented.

## Danish residency and exodus

The Dowager Empress died on 13 October 1928 at Hvidøre. Her estate was sold and Olga purchased Knudsminde, a farm in Ballerup about 20 kilometres (12 mi) from central Copenhagen, with her portion of the proceeds. She and her husband kept horses, in which Colonel Kulikovsky was especially interested, along with Jersey cows, pigs, chickens, geese, dogs and cats. For transport they had a small car and a sledge. Tihon and Guri (age thirteen and eleven, respectively when they moved to Knudsminde) grew up on the farm. Olga ran the household with the help of her elderly, faithful lady's maid Emilia Tenso ("Mimka"), who had come along with her from Russia. The Grand Duchess lived with simplicity, working in the fields, doing household chores, and painting.

The farm became a center for the Russian monarchist community in Denmark, and many Russian emigrants visited. Olga maintained a high level of correspondence with the Russian émigré community and former members of the imperial army. On 2 February 1935 in the Russian Orthodox Church in Copenhagen, she and her husband were godparents, with her cousin Prince Gustav of Denmark, to Aleksander Schalburg, son of Russian-born Danish army officer Christian Frederik von Schalburg. In the 1930s, the family took annual holidays at Sofiero Castle, Sweden, with Crown Prince Gustaf of Sweden and his wife, Louise. Olga began to sell her own paintings, of Russian and Danish scenes, with exhibition auctions in Copenhagen, London, Paris, and Berlin. Some of the proceeds were donated to the charities she supported.

Neutral Denmark was invaded by Nazi Germany on 9 April 1940 and was occupied for the remainder of World War II. Food shortages, communication restrictions, and transport closures followed. As Olga's sons, Tikhon and Guri, served as officers in the Danish Army, they were interned as prisoners of war, but their imprisonment in a Copenhagen hotel lasted less than two months. Tikhon was imprisoned for a further month in 1943 after being arrested on charges of espionage. Other Russian émigrés, keen to fight against the Soviets, enlisted in the German forces. Despite her sons' internment and her mother's Danish origins, Olga was implicated in her compatriots' collusion with German forces, as she continued to meet and extend help to Russian émigrés fighting against communism. On 4 May 1945, German forces in Denmark surrendered to the British. When economic and social conditions for Russian exiles failed to improve, General Pyotr Krasnov wrote to the Grand Duchess, detailing the wretched conditions affecting Russian immigrants in Denmark. She in turn asked Prince Axel of Denmark to help them, but her request was refused.

With the end of World War II, Soviet troops occupied the Danish island of Bornholm, and the Soviet Union wrote to the Danish government accusing Olga and a Danish Catholic bishop of conspiracy against the Soviet government. The surviving Romanovs in Denmark grew fearful of an assassination or kidnap attempt, and Olga decided to move her family across the Atlantic to the relative safety of rural Canada.

## Emigration to Canada

In May 1948, the Kulikovskys travelled to London by Danish troopship. They were housed in a grace and favour apartment at Hampton Court Palace while arrangements were made for their journey to Canada as agricultural immigrants. On 2 June 1948, Olga, Kulikovsky, Tikhon and his Danish-born wife Agnete, Guri and his Danish-born wife Ruth, Guri and Ruth's two children, Xenia and Leonid, and Olga's devoted companion and former maid Emilia Tenso ("Mimka") departed Liverpool on board the Empress of Canada. After a rough crossing, the ship docked at Halifax, Nova Scotia. The family lived in Toronto, until they purchased a 200-acre (0.81 km<sup>2</sup>) farm in Halton County, Ontario, near Campbellville.

By 1952, the farm had become a burden to Olga and her husband. They were both elderly; their sons had moved away; labour was hard to come by; the Colonel suffered increasing ill-health, and some of Olga's remaining jewelry was stolen. The farm was sold, and Olga, her husband and her former maid, Mimka, moved to a smaller five-room house at 2130 Camilla Road, Cooksville, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto now amalgamated into Mississauga. Mimka suffered a stroke that left her disabled, and Olga nursed her until Mimka's death on 24 January 1954.

Neighbours and visitors to the region, including foreign and royal dignitaries, took interest in Olga, and visited her home. Among these were members of her extended family, including first cousin once removed Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, in 1954, and second cousin Louis Mountbatten, and his wife Edwina, in August 1959. In June 1959, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip (a first cousin twice removed and a first cousin once removed, respectively) visited Toronto and invited the Grand Duchess for lunch on board the royal yacht Britannia. Her home was also a magnet for Romanov impostors, whom Olga and her family considered a menace.

By 1958, Olga's husband was virtually paralyzed, and she sold some of her remaining jewelry to raise funds. Following her husband's death in 1958, she became increasingly infirm until hospitalized in April 1960 at Toronto General Hospital. She was not informed or was not aware that her elder sister, Xenia, died in London that month. Unable to care for herself, Olga went to stay with Russian émigré friends, Konstantin and Sinaida Martemianoff, in an apartment above a beauty salon at 716 Gerrard Street East, Toronto. She slipped into a coma on 21 November 1960, and died on 24 November at the age of 78.

She was interred next to her husband in York Cemetery, Toronto, on 30 November 1960, after a funeral service at Christ the Saviour Cathedral, Toronto. Officers of the Akhtyrsky Hussars and the Blue Cuirassiers stood guard in the small Russian church, which overflowed with mourners. Although she lived simply, bought cheap clothes, and did her own shopping and gardening, her estate was valued at more than 200,000 Canadian dollars (about \$1.77 million as of 2020) and was mostly held as stock and bonds. Her material possessions were appraised at \$350 in total, which biographer Patricia Phenix considered an underestimate.

## Legacy

Olga began drawing and painting at a young age. She told her official biographer Ian Vorres:

> Even during my geography and arithmetic lessons, I was allowed to sit with a pencil in my hand. I could listen much better when I was drawing corn or wild flowers.

She painted throughout her life, on paper, canvas and ceramic, and her output is estimated at over 2,000 pieces. Her usual subject was scenery and landscape, but she also painted portraits and still lifes. Vorres wrote,

> Her paintings, vivid and sensitive, are immersed in the subdued light of her beloved Russia. Besides her numerous landscapes and flower pictures that reveal her inherent love for nature, she often also dwells on scenes from simple daily life ... executed with a sensitive eye for composition, expression and detail. Her work exudes peace, serenity and a spirit of love that mirror her own character, in total contrast to the suffering she experienced through most of her life.

Her daughter-in-law wrote,

> Being a deeply religious person, the Grand Duchess perceived the beauty of nature as being divinely inspired creation. Prayer and attending church provided her with the strength not only to overcome the new difficulties befallen her, but also to continue with her drawing. These feelings of gratefulness to God pervaded not only the icons created by the Grand Duchess, but also her portraits and still life paintings.

Her paintings were a profitable source of income. According to her daughter-in-law, Olga preferred to exhibit in Denmark to avoid the commercialism of the North American market. The Russian Relief Programme, which was founded by Tikhon and his third wife Olga in honour of the Grand Duchess, exhibited a selection of her work at the residence of the Russian ambassador in Washington in 2001, in Moscow in 2002, in Ekaterinburg in 2004, in Saint Petersburg and Moscow in 2005, in Tyumen and Surgut in 2006, at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and Saint Michael's Castle in Saint Petersburg in 2007, and at the Vladimir Arsenyev Museum in Vladivostok in 2013. Pieces by Olga are included in the collections of the British queen Elizabeth II, the Norwegian king Harald V, and private collections in North America and Europe. Ballerup Museum in Pederstrup, Denmark, has around 100 of her works.

### Ancestry

Last Grand Duchess of Imperial Russia

19th-century women from the Russian Empire