AMERICANALMANAC (Sadie Smith) - Flea market 'fox head' turns out to be one of two known Tasmanian Tiger specimens on Earth
A British antique collector paid $85,000 for a taxidermied head mislabeled as a fox, then confirmed through X-ray and CT scans that it belonged to a Tasmanian Tiger, an apex predator extinct since 1936. James Cranfield, a 38-year-old natural history relics dealer who specializes in collecting unusual fox heads, was scrolling an auction site when […] The post Flea market 'fox head' turns out to be one of two known Tasmanian Tiger specimens on Earth appeared first on American Almanac .
A British antique collector paid $85,000 for a taxidermied head mislabeled as a fox, then confirmed through X-ray and CT scans that it belonged to a Tasmanian Tiger, an apex predator extinct since 1936. James Cranfield, a 38-year-old natural history relics dealer who specializes in collecting unusual fox heads, was scrolling an auction site when he spotted a listing for a "19th century fox head" consigned to Auctioneum, an auction house in Bristol, England. The image stopped him cold. The proportions were wrong. The teeth were wrong. Cranfield counted eight upper incisors in the photograph, two more than any fox has ever carried. He believed he was looking at the head of a thylacine, commonly known as the Tasmanian Tiger, a carnivorous…Open