Scientists at Penn State and their international team of colleagues have revealed all the genes that the exotic Tasmanian Tiger inherited only from its mother. The research marks the first successful sequencing of genes from this carnivorous marsupial, which looked like a large tiger-striped dog and became extinct in 1936. The research also opens the door to the widespread, nondestructive use of museum specimens to learn why mammals become extinct and how extinctions might be prevented. The team extracted and sequenced DNA from the hair of two specimens, not from bone, which has been used in previous studies of extinct species. The new gene sequences permitted the team to accurately determine how the Tasmanian Tiger is related to other marsupials.
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