All About Tasmanian Devils

When you hear the name Tasmanian Devil I can almost guarantee that the first thing that comes to mind is the famous Looney Tunes character, Taz. At least that's what I normally think of. But these little guys are actually animals although they look quite different from the cartoonish image that your mind conjures up.

In real life Tasmanian Devils are small marsupials. They grow to about 23-26 inches long with a bushy tail roughly half that length, weighing in at anywhere from 11 to 30 pounds. Their coat is mostly black with the exception of whitish mark on their chest, and sometimes other white marks along their rump and sides. They also have an infamously large gape that paired with their large teeth gives them that devilish look. Contrary to popular belief this gape is less likely to signal aggression than it is to signal uncertainty or fear.

These little guys are carnivores and rely on scavenging for the most part, and for this reason are very eco friendly because they'll eat most things even if it's rotten. But they add a little live prey into the mix like birds or small mammals. They eat their prey almost completely as their strong jaws and sharp teeth allow them to even eat the bone. Although they're generally loners a lot of times multiple devils will show up at the same carcass, this is when their famous screaming normally happens. Their screaming and snarling is a way of asserting dominance.

When Tasmanian Devils are first born they're only the size of a grain of rice, and have to compete for their food right away inside their mother's pouch. The mother only has four teats available, so that means out of the nearly fifty imps (which is the name for these tiny undeveloped baby devils) only four will survive. The four surviving babies will hold onto their respective teat for about one hundred days before they let go. The little imps will eventually come out of the pouch after which time they often ride on their mom's back. They're completely weaned and independent by around nine months.

Sadly Tasmanian Devils are endangered and only live in the wild on Tasmania, an island off the mainland of Australia, despite the fact that they used to exist on the mainland itself prior to the introduction of the dingo who many believe caused them to go extinct there. Some effort is being made recently to reintroduce them to mainland Australia however. The current issue bringing the numbers down other than natural predators and human development cutting down on their habitat is a unique cancer only present in devils. First detected in 1996, devil facial tumour disease is a contagious cancer spread by biting each other that kills adults within several months of contracting it. There isn't a known cure or prevention method but people have been attempting to take healthy devils to quarantined locations where they can multiply without fear of the disease spreading.