Clade-specific forebrain cytoarchitectures of the extinct Tasmanian tiger
Abstract
The Tasmanian tiger was the largest carnivorous marsupial and became extinct in the early-mid 20th-century mainly due to hunting. Its physical resemblance to eutherian canids, such as foxes and wolves, is a textbook example of convergent evolution to similar ecological niches; however, whether their brains are also similar is not known. Here, we gained access to a century-old histological preparation of a thylacine brain and uploaded high-resolution microphotographies to an online repository for public access. Detailed quantifications of cellular features revealed that their brain was typical of carnivorous/scavenger marsupials and did not resemble that of canids, despite external body similarities. This discrepancy suggests the independent evolution of traits and a corresponding nonuniformity of similarities by evolutionary convergence.
- Publication:
-
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
- Pub Date:
- July 2023
- DOI:
- 10.1073/pnas.2306516120
- Bibcode:
- 2023PNAS..12006516H