Tasmanian Emu

The Tasmanian Emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae diemenensis) is an extinct subspecies of the Emu. It was found on Tasmania where it had become isolated during the Late Pleistocene. As opposed to the other insular emu taxa, the King Island and the Kangaroo Island Emu, the population on Tasmania was sizable, meaning that there were no marked effects of small population size as in the other two isolates. Thus, the Tasmanian Emu had not progressed to the point where it could be considered a distinct species, and even its status as a distinct subspecies is not universally accepted as it agreed with the mainland birds in measurements and the external characters used to distinguish it - a whitish instead of black foreneck and throat and an unfeathered neck - apparently are also present, albeit rare, in some mainland birds. There are suggestions the bird was slightly smaller than the modern Emu, but in conflict, other evidence (including descriptions of Pleistocene remains) indicates that both are similar in size. Today, it is apparently only known from subfossil bones, the skins which once existed having been lost.