For a thorough answer on this question, you would have to read what texts we have on the Tasmanian tiger - and there are only really a few.

Earlier textbooks focus on the historical accounts - so, stories people told, or that were published in newspapers. There were some scientific accounts examining the thylacine morphology, but very few scientific studies of behavioural accounts. Modern research looks at morphology - for example, jaw strength - and tries to work backwards and extrapolate the implications for behaviour.

So regarding natural habitat, I will share just a few anecdotes.

Firstly, the thylacine was believed to shelter in dens - under rock overhangs, or in tree hollows and similar. This was sometimes called a “lair” - as per the caption in the photo below.

The above photo is the only verified photo of a thylacine lair. You can read about it on the thylacine museum website - the occupants were captured. The lair is lined with fern and leaf litter. Although we don’t know if the thylacines simply took over the den of another animal, or whether they gathered the leaf litter themselves, we do know they used this spot as a lair.

Another anecdote relates to hunting - there are stories of hunting thylacine families - they work together to flush out kangaroos or wallabies and then other members of the thylacine family will cut off the fleeing animals. In some of these accounts it is mentioned that the tigers will run through the forest beside a clearing, but will not go through the clearing into open space - so you could say that they are using the forest as cover.

And finally, there are also some stories of tiger being somewhat migratory - in particular, accounts that they would traverse up onto a mountain range in one season, travel the range, then down the other side of the range in the opposite season, back along the valley and be ready to head up the mountain range again the following year. There are other accounts of tigers turning up at the same sheep stations year after year to within a few days of the same full moon in the same month - so you could argue that somehow they know how to follow the seasons and move through their environment - most probably staying in the habitat that best suits them in that season. As for details as to why they would be high in one part of the year, or low in the other, and so on - we simply don’t have the information.

The link above to the thylacine museum is an excellent place to read more about what we do know about tiger behaviour.

You can also find out more about Tasmanian tigers - including the examination of the evidence for many sighting claims - at my website Where Light Meets Dark or follow along on Facebook Where Light Meets Dark.