Tiger earns its stripes as a legend in Tasmania

For Australians the Tasmanian tiger holds the same fascination that Scots have for the Loch Ness monster. But unlike Scotland's mythical creature of the deep, the Tasmanian tiger did exist.

Even though the last known specimen died in Hobart Zoo in 1936, there have been persistent rumors the animal still exists, with reported sightings in the heavily forested northwestern and western regions of the island state.

A recently released report by the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment, under the Right to Information Act, shows there have been numerous sightings of the animal - also known as the thylacine - in the past three years. Despite the report, the department says: "There is no credible evidence to confirm the thylacine still exists."

The report contains information from eight sightings, from farmers, bushwalkers, locals and tourists, all claiming to have caught a glimpse of the mysterious creature over the past three years.

Sandy yellowish-brown to gray in color, the animal had 15 to 20 distinct dark stripes across the back from shoulder to tail and looked like a cross between a wolf, a fox, and a large cat.

A spokesperson for the department said that while there have been reports of sightings, there has been no "hard evidence to support the claims".

One of the more credible sightings noted in the report was in February 2018, outside the town of Corinna on Tasmania's northwest coast.

Two tourists from Western Australia claimed they saw the animal when it walked in front of their hire car one afternoon.

The report said they had just driven off a barge and were on a gravel road when an "animal walked slowly onto the road".

They stopped the car as the animal "walked from the right hand side of the road, ... three quarters of the way across the gravel road it turned and looked at the vehicle a couple of times, and then walked back in the same 'run' it had come out of".

"It was in clear view for 12-15 seconds. The animal had a stiff and firm tail, that was thick at the base. It had stripes down its back. It was the size of a large Kelpie (bigger than a fox, smaller than a German shepherd)," the report said.

In 2017, a driver reported seeing a possible thylacine near the Deep Gully Forest Reserve in northwestern Tasmania.

Most recently, in July, a man in southern Tasmania, near Hobart, reported seeing a paw print that seemed to match that of the Tasmanian tiger.

These reports reflect just how large the thylacine still looms in the collective imagination.

Native to Tasmania and the Australian mainland, it was the only member of the Thylacinidae family to survive into modern times, according to the Australian Museum.

European colonists killed thousands of thylacines for attacking sheep. Today, the thylacine still remains a major component of Tasmanian culture.