"First & foremost is a fine male marsupial wolf, actually the sole member of its kind in captivity today".  He continues, "The big fellow in the zoo was not a safe companion inside his enclosure, and while photographs were being taken Mr. Reid had to ward him off continually with a paling".

    Note Fleay's choice of words "big fellow" and "him", confirming that the animal was male.  In the September 1963 edition of the National Geographic Magazine, Fleay once again confirms the thylacine's sex:

    "Early observers marvelled at the creature's huge jaws 'opening almost to the ears'.  Some idea of this is conveyed in the photograph I took of the last one ever kept in captivity.  This male specimen, fed on horse meat and hungry for variety, sidled up to me as I knelt in his cage and slightly attempted to add my leg to his bill of fare"  (Fleay 1963).

    Sleightholme meticulously examined each frame of Fleay's movie footage to see if there was any clue that would indicate gender.  The Thylacine Museum's online copy of the Fleay film (which runs for 45 seconds) was used for his research, and so the museum is proud to have contributed to his discovery.

    At first view of the Fleay footage, there is, as Paddle advocates, no evidence to suggest that the animal was male.  David Fleay entered the thylacine enclosure at the Beaumaris Zoo together with Arthur Reid the curator, to take a series of photographs and to record his film.  The presence of a stranger in the enclosure, along with his cumbersome camera equipment, would certainly have stressed the thylacine.  It is on record that Fleay received a bite to his buttock from his reluctant host during filming.  The bite and the wide threat-yawn response seen on Fleay's film were guarded warnings that his presence was not welcome.

    Sleightholme states that in periods of stress, the scrotum would have been held closely within the "pseudo-pouch" that surrounds it, and this would make casual observation of gender difficult.  Assuming this to be the case, he thought it improbable for evidence of gender to be observed when the thylacine was walking around its enclosure.  He therefore concentrated his attention on three short sequences in the film where Benjamin was either seated or lying down.  In one of these sequences, the animal is observed in a seated position, turning its head and displaying its threat-yawn.  It is at this point, where the lower abdomen is clearly visible, that Sleightholme made his discovery.  When the frame is enlarged (see image below), the scrotal sac can clearly be seen, confirming beyond any doubt that Benjamin was male.

    An article published in the Queenslander newspaper on the 15th November 1934 (p. 40), notes Benjamin's body measurements:

    The Tasmanian winter of 1936 was particularly severe.  Benjamin, the world's last known captive thylacine, died on the night of 7th September 1936 from exposure to the cold; having been left out of his shelter overnight.

    Late in 1937, the City Council decided to discontinue operation of the zoo, stating that its maintenance was "no longer in the best interests of the city".  The Great Depression of the 1930s saw attendance at the zoo steadily falling, and it was finally closed to the public on 25th November 1937.  Today, at both the Sandy Bay and Queen's Domain sites that it once occupied, only a few tenuous reminders of the zoo remain.