Was The Tasmanian Wolf A Mammal?

　　The Tasmanian wolf is probably no longer an extant species  but it was a marsupial and not a mammal. It looked a lot like a dog but, since it was a marsupial, was therefore quite unrelated to any species of dog.

　　Fossil remains indicate that three thousand years ago the Tasmanian wolf occurred all over mainland Australia. However, it had disappeared from there many centuries before the first European settlers arrived, probably because of competition with dingoes. It flourished in Tasmania until it came into contact with settlers - particularly sheep farmers, who regarded the animal as a pest. The government actually offered a reward for each thylacine killed, and between 1888 and 1909 a total of 2 268 were exterminated. Such slaughter, coupled with a disease epidemic, sealed the fate of the thylacine, and the last authenticated specimen died in Hobart Zoo in 1934. The last definite record of one killed in the wild dates from 1930.