Tasmanian Devil
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The Tasmanian Devil, an icon of the island after which it is named, is on the verge of extinction as a contagious facial cancer decimates the animals. It’s an epidemic of a kind never seen before and scientists are desperately trying to create a vaccine.
A Tasmanian Devil: a jaw almost as strong as leopard
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AFP
A Tasmanian Devil: a jaw almost as strong as leopard
The birth of Tasmanian devils, which are furless and smaller than crabs when they are born, usually comes 21 days after conception.
Four of the miniature devils fit in the pouch of a female, where they spend about 21 weeks growing, firmly clinging to the mother’s teats. The young ride out the cool winter of the southern hemisphere in these cozy surroundings, first venturing outdoors at the beginning of spring.
Strict conformity to the rhythm of the seasons is important for Tasmanian Devils, the largest carnivores among marsupials. And yet biologists are starting to observe individual animals that are no longer sticking to the normal order of things for their species, which has ensured their survival on the Australian island for many thousands of years. They are mating too early in their lives, and their offspring are born in the wrong season.
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The cause is a disease that has turned the lives of Tasmanian Devils upside down. A mysterious form of cancer has afflicted the animals. Since the discovery of the first sick animal 11 years ago, the strange tumors have grown rampant in and killed more than 75,000 of the jet-black carrion eaters, or about half of all “Tassie Devils,” as the raccoon-sized creatures are affectionately called by Tasmanians.
The cancer is fatal for the animals. “Once they’ve got a lump, it’s a one way trip,” says Menna Jones, an expert on Tasmanian Devils at the University of Tasmania. “It is extremely unusual to have this extreme degree of death,” explains Nick Mooney, a wildlife biologist with the Tasmanian government.
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