Vision of what is being claimed to be a Tasmanian tiger in the southern Adelaide Hills has received more than 30,000 YouTube views and spiked speculation the extinct species may still exist.

Comments on the video, released this week, suggest the animal could be anything from a fox with mange to a kangaroo.

But Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia founder Neil Waters told 891 ABC Adelaide's Breakfast program he was confident it was a thylacine.

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Mr Waters said the animal was first sighted in March 2015.

"The animal came out of a creek and ran through a person's front yard," he said.

"There were four people in the house looking out the window at the right time — they all saw it."

Mr Waters said the clip was filmed after a second sighting in February.

"If you start scratching around and doing some research, we have had over 4,500 sightings on the mainland since 1936," Mr Waters said.

"We think there is a very real and true story about the continuing existence of thylacines on the mainland."

Photos, videos 'pretty ordinary'

South Australian Museum senior researcher Catherine Kemper said it was difficult to confirm the Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, sighting.

"I think it would have to be extremely unlikely," Dr Kemper said.

Dr Catherine Kemper doubts the animal sighted was a thylacine. ( 891 ABC Adelaide: Brett Williamson )

Intact remains of thylacines, estimated to be between 2,000 and 4,000 years old, have been found in cave systems across the Nullarbor in South Australia.

Any signs of thylacine residency in the Adelaide Hills areas were yet to be officially recorded.

"It doesn't make sense to me that there aren't any really fantastic photographs of [live thylacines]," Dr Kemper said.

"All the photographs and video clips so far are pretty ordinary."

Tasmanian tigers once lived across all of Australia

Thylacines once roamed mainland Australia and New Guinea.

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Ancient Aboriginal rock paintings in Western Australia and the Northern Territory depict the animals.

Fossils have been found in South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland.

In Tasmania, two rounds of bounties were offered for thylacines — in 1830 and 1888, after they began killing livestock.

By 1909 the government had paid more than 2,180 bounties and the animals were considered rare.

The last thylacine died in September 1936 after a Beaumaris zookeeper reportedly failed to lock the animal in its enclosure.

Can science bring thylacines back from the dead?

In 1999, the Australian Museum began a project to clone extinct species.

Individual thylacine genes were successfully replicated in 2002.

Hopes were to clone full copies of genes and implant the strands into the egg of a Tasmanian devil, the thylacines only surviving relative.

But no further news of the project has been released since 2002.