This is fascinating. I'd heard this story about the last thylacine so many times - it was the canonical telling in the Wikipedia article. And it was all made up!

Incidentally, this little detail about the last thylacines pelt really gets me:

with its skin showing the flattened areas where schoolchildren had been allowed to pat it

Complex feelings about the last thylacine, a species humans killed off, having such a long post-life getting along with humans.