Newly-colourised footage released of the last Tasmanian Tiger
A screenshot of newly-colourised footage of the last known surviving thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger
Australia's national film archive has released colourised footage of the last known surviving Tasmanian tiger - or Thylacine - for National Threatened Species Day.
The National Film and Sound Archive posted the newly-updated film footage of Benjamin the thylacine, dating back to 1933, on its Twitter account today.
Naturalist David Fleay shot the original footage in black-and-white at Beaumaris Zoo, Hobart. He can be seen yawning, patrolling his enclosure and scratching.
Fleay's hard work in capturing the footage as part of his activities in conservation weren't without reward, however: in exchange for being immortalised, Benjamin issued a bite to Fleay's rear-end after the cameras stopped rolling.
The archive scanned the original film negative using a Scanity HDR (High Dynamic Range) film scanner and sent ProRes files in 4k to Samuel François-Steininger in Paris.Â
He told the archive's blog: 'For the thylacine, I faced a different kind of challenge – and responsibility. I had to take care of the rare filmed footage and pay tribute to the last representative of a species, which disappeared 85 years ago.'
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