I remember seeing Tasmanian devils in the old Looney Toon cartoons, but always thought that there was no such critter. If you recall the old cartoons the Tasmanian Devil was a animal that would spin at a high rate of speed destroying everything in its path. So when I read that the Tasmanian Devils were facing extinction, I stopped to read an article that describes their plight.

The article stated that:

In real life, the carnivorous marsupials are facing a deadly and mysterious disease that has been decimating their numbers since it was first reported in 1996.

In the wild, the Tasmanian devil – the largest marsupial carnivore alive – has lost about 60 percent of its population in just the last decade. Experts say that without intervention, the disease could wipe them out within 50 years.

The tumors on a Tasmanian Devil looks like this:

Has anyone seen a real live Tasmanian Devil? Are they as ferocious as the cartoons would have us believe?

Comments welcome.

Source