Tasmanian Devil

MammalAustralia

Nov 5

Sarcophilus harrisii

The jaws of a Tasmanian devil can open to an 80-degree angle, able to deliver the strongest bite of any carnivorous mammal relative to body size. Nicknamed the "Australian hyena", the devil is a bone-crunching scavenger, gorging on dead bodies before they can fester and spread disease.

A Stocky Bear-Dog Marsupial

Built like a stocky hybrid between a dog and a bear, the Tasmanian devil is actually the world's largest carnivorous marsupial — more closely related to koalas and kangaroos than to any placental carnivores. The title of 'world's largest' may inflate expectations; the devil only reaches 80 cm (31 inches) at most with a max weight of 12 kg (26 lbs). Initially, it may appear clumsy on the ground, its rotund body ambling about on little legs, but it’s actually quite a capable athlete — able to reach fairly high speeds (13 km/h or 8.1 mph) with impressive endurance, as well as swim across rivers and scale trees.

A Tazzy devil packs a lot into its squat frame. Like other marsupials, it uses its tail as a fat store, able to draw energy from it during lean times. And it is well-equipped for nocturnal hunting; with whiskers lining its snout and head, good hearing and a keen sense of smell, it can easily find food in the dark. Its most impressive feature, however, is its skull. Specifically its jaws, which can open to an 80-degree angle. The bite it delivers is the strongest of any carnivorous mammal relative to body size.

Meat Lover

Referred to as the "Australian hyena", the Tasmanian devil is a scavenger. Its genus name (Sarcophilus) means meat or flesh-lover in Greek. And indeed, it is a hypercarnivore, but it takes most of its meat in the form of carrion, finding wombats, wallabies, and rabbits that have already bit the dust, whether as roadkill or by other means. Its vice-like jaws are used to crush the carcases into tiny pieces for digestion. Nowhere near a picky eater, it will scoff down just about anything and — known as a gorge feeder — it will eat a lot of it at once. Tasmanian devils are like gruesome graveyard janitors, gobbling down dead bodies — bones and all — before they can fester and spread disease. So devoted is it to its meat-eating lifestyle, that it’s even been sighted taking naps inside carrion, only to wake up and continue feasting on its impromptu, fetid bed.

A War For Survival

Today in the wild, these carnivorous marsupials hold out on their last sanctuary: the island of Tasmania. But, once upon a time, devils worked as nature's clean-up crew throughout mainland Australia. But times became tough for the devils. Between 4,000 - 8,000 years ago, they appear to have fought a war against humans arriving on the mainland and the dogs they brought down from the Malay Archipelago up north of Australia. Escaping from their human owners, the dogs took to the wilds of this new frontier. They thrived, and still live there today as dingoes. With a rising human population — which had already wiped the large island clear of much of its native megafauna — and a new canine predator to contend with, the devils stood little chance. They have not lived wild on mainland Australia for the past 3,000 years.

They now range throughout the island of Tasmania, where they live among their closest relatives; the other large carnivorous marsupials, the spotted-tailed quolls and the eastern quolls. Dingoes never made it to Tasmania. The devils prefer to live near the coast, in places covered in scrub or forest, but they don't fare well in disturbed or deforested habitats.

Imps

In typical marsupial fashion, a devil baby (also called a "joey" or, more amusingly, an "imp") is born after only 21 days and is about as small as a grain of rice. However, these minuscule newborns have it particularly tough. They are born straight into a race for survival, a battle royale against brothers and sisters. 20 - 40 imps are born at one time, but the mother only has four teets that provide them with nourishing milk. Once the fittest and fastest of them reach the mother's pouch, they clamp down on a nipple, which then expands, making sure that the little imps cannot let go and fall out. For 100 days they stay attached to their mother in this way, and only after 5 - 6 months do they stop suckling.

A Tasmanian devil stands upright, sniffing for food.

Fearsome Devils?

How did this little scavenger get such a fearsome name? When first observed and recorded by early Europeans, the Tasmanian devils were said to fly into fits of rage; baring their teeth, lunging towards anything that moved, as well as screeching and screaming, producing disturbing guttural cries. All this may seem frightening to a human, but that’s just the way devils communicate with one another. When one opens its mouth wide in a yawn, showing off its array of sharp teeth, it's more likely to be expressing fear than anger. The snarls and screams are used to establish dominance and to determine who feeds first. What appears like aggression is actually bluff behaviour; part of the feeding ritual that lessens the chance of any real violence breaking out. When devils confront each other, their ears turn a bright red and they “sneeze” on thier rivals. This is usually just posturing, however, and often one or even both competitors will settle down instead of fighting.

Still Alive, Against All Odds

While the devils don’t have to compete with dingoes in Tasmania, they must still battle their other, more persistent enemy: humans. With the arrival of Europeans and their demonic view on predators, the new settlers launched a persecution against the devils in the 18th century. Considered a danger to livestock, bounties were put on the Tasmanian devil and Tasmanian tiger (another carnivorous marsupial, also called the "marsupial wolf" or "thylacine"). They were hunted to near extinction. While the devil managed to make it through this purge, gaining protection in 1941, the Tasmanian tiger went extinct in 1936 — so recently that we have a video of the last known surviving member of the species; doomed to die alone, the final remnant of a species that will never see another life.

The Tasmanian devils may have survived horrors in their past, but their fight to stay alive continues to this day, facing the same threats that plague so many other wild species around the world. New invaders such as domestic dogs and foxes, networks of roads where many devils are struck and killed, and fragmented habitats. While all this is bad enough, the devils have become plagued with a unique disease, a contagious cancer that is spreading through the species. Like a cruel joke, the consequences of their slim survivals in the past have come back to haunt them. Living through so many genetic bottlenecks, the genetic diversity of the population has suffered, leaving devils more vulnerable to disease. Devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) is a type of transmissible cancer that spreads between individuals through biting. It causes horrendous disfigurement in the face and as tumours grow around the mouth, it renders the devil unable to eat, eventually resulting in a death by starvation.

The Tasmanian devil was labelled as an endangered species by the IUCN in 2008, with populations declining. There is still, however, a faint hope on the horizon for these whily creatures. Many zoos, sanctuaries, and animal centres throughout Australia (and a few in the rest of the world) are engaged in captive breeding programs. Their hope is to breed a healthy population of devils as a long-term insurance plan for the species. These healthy devils are then released into zones where the transmissible cancer isn't present, with the hope of building up healthy wild populations.

**Where Does It Live?**

⛰️ Near coastal scrublands or forests.
📍 Endemic to Tasmania.

Size // Medium
Length // 57 cm (22.5 in) body + 24 cm (9.5 in) tail
Weight // 6 kg (13.2 lbs)
Activity: Nocturnal 🌙
Lifestyle: Solitary 👤
Lifespan: Up to 8 years
Diet: Carnivore
Favorite Food: Carrion 🥩
Class: Mammalia
Order: Dasyuromorphia
Family: Dasyuridae
Genus: Sarcophilus
Species: S. harrisii

The Tasmanian devil has the strongest bite of any mammal for its size, with jaws that can open to an 80-degree angle. It can crunch through bone to eat every piece of its prey and has even bitten through metal cages to get at livestock.
Their tails aren't just for balance or aesthetics, devils use them to store fat for lean times — so the fatter the tail, the healthier the devil.
Since the extinction of the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) in 1936, the Tasmanian devil has been the largest marsupial carnivore on the planet — followed by the tiger quoll in second place. However, the devil isn't all that large, reaching a maximum weight of only 12 kg (26 lbs).

The Tasmanian devil is a hypercarnivore — it has no room in its diet for green. The majority of its food comes in the form of carrion (the flesh of already dead animals).

Like other marsupials, the joeys of a Tassie devil are born underdeveloped and tiny, about the size of a grain of rice. They climb to clamp down on their mother's nipples, where they will suckle until they have become fully developed.

A yawn from a Tasmanian devil isn't an indicator of sleepiness, it is a signal that the devil is anxious or afraid. Its yawn shows off its teeth to the potential threat.

The shrieks and howls of this animal so frightened the first Europeans who heard them, that they conferred upon it the name of "devil". In fact, these frightening vocalisations were part of their communications; used to warn other animals of their presence or to determine dominance between devils.