The last known thylacine died at Hobart Zoo in 1936. It died on the night of 7 September, making that date a landmark in the history of modern extinction.
The animal was the final known member of its species, Thylacinus cynocephalus, and is often described as an “endling.” It had been kept at Hobart Zoo in Tasmania, where it was filmed alive in 1933 by naturalist David Fleay. That footage is the last known motion picture record of a living thylacine.
The date came only weeks after Tasmania granted the species legal protection on 10 July 1936. That protection arrived too late to save the animal. The last confirmed wild thylacine had been killed in 1930, while persecution, habitat changes, disease, and other pressures had already driven the population toward collapse.
Many sources call the last animal “Benjamin,” but that name is now regarded as a later invention. Researchers have also debated the animal’s sex and whether neglect or old age caused its death. Those disputes do not change the accepted year: 1936.