Henry Burrell

Henry (Harry) James Burrell OBE (19 January 1873 – 29 July 1945) was an Australian naturalist who specialised in the study of monotremes.

In 1926 he published The Wild Animals of Australasia (with A. S. Le Souef) and in the next year, The Platypus, its Discovery, Zoological Position Form and Characteristics, Habits, Life History, etc.

Burrell is credited with a notorious 1921 photo of a thylacine (or Tasmanian tiger), showing it standing in the bush with a chicken in its mouth.

[1] Burrell's original photo clearly shows that the animal was captive, but the version that appeared in the newspaper was cropped to remove these details.

Researcher Carol Freeman analysed the photo and concluded that the thylacine shown was a mounted specimen, posed for the camera with the bird in its mouth.