The devil in the flesh: how the frantic Tasmanian predator lives (9 photos + 1 video)

Among our neighbors on the planet, few have earned such hostility from people as to be included in the company of the main enemy of the human race. It includes only a few sea creatures and one land animal.

The appearance of the Tasmanian marsupial devil clearly indicates its biological “profession”: it is a predator, albeit a rather primitive one.





ZOOSPRAVKA

Tasmanian marsupial devil

Sarcophilus harrisii or S. harrisii

Type - chordates

Class - mammals

Infraclass - marsupials

Order - predatory marsupials

Family - carnivorous marsupials

Genus - Sarcophilus (marsupial devil)



The largest living marsupial predator. Body length - 50-80 centimeters, tail - 23-30 centimeters, height at the withers - up to 30 centimeters, weight of an adult male - up to 12 kilograms. Found only in Tasmania, currently mainly in the northern, western and central regions. In historically recent times it was found in Australia.

It lives in any landscape except the immediate territory of human settlements, and is especially numerous in coastal savannas and pastures. It feeds on a large number of species of small and medium-sized animals (from insects to large birds), as well as carrion. Swims well and can climb trees. It reproduces annually and reaches sexual maturity by the end of the second year of life. Life expectancy in nature is 7-8, in captivity - up to 9 years.

The devil is very strong for his size, and in a fight with a more powerful enemy he resists fiercely, frantically, which was one of the reasons for his name. Other reasons are appearance, the ability to secrete a foul-smelling secretion when angry or frightened, nocturnal lifestyle, loud unpleasant screams and a tendency to fight.

At the same time, even adult animals are relatively easily tamed and feel good in captivity, but those taken as young animals grow up to be completely tame. The number is far from critical, but is rapidly declining due to the outbreak of a specific disease. Currently (in 2008 - Note Vokrugsveta.ru) the issue of including this animal in the International Red Book with the status “vulnerable”* is being considered.

*As of 2023, the Tasmanian devil is listed as an endangered species

Bear/bull terrier mix

In terms of physique, the devil's marsupial is a kind of hybrid of a small bear and a bull terrier: a disproportionately large head with powerful toothed jaws, a rather massive body, short strong paws armed with strong but blunt claws. The coat is short, jet black, with a thin white crescent on the chest, and sometimes also with small white spots on the sides.

A careful look will also reveal something special, unusual for the predatory animals we are used to and animals in general. Firstly, the tail is not long and not very short - slightly less than half the length of the body, but of an unusual shape: thick at the base and gradually thinning towards the end, like a carrot. It plays the role of a camel's hump: fat reserves are deposited in it. If the devil has to go hungry for a long time, his tail becomes evenly thin.





The animal’s state of mind is written on its ears: when it is excited, their inner surface changes color from pink to crimson

Small round ears are covered with fur only on the outside. Inside they are naked, pink (if their owner is calm) or crimson (if he is angry). There is no hair at the end of the muzzle, which is decorated with a wet nose, and in many animals the tail also partially peels off. Quite long jaws can open incredibly wide, but the most important thing is the extraordinary force of their compression. Some males placed in a cage were biting the iron bars.

And finally, the belly bag. Its very presence indicates that the devil belongs to the marsupial subclass. But in most of them the bag opens forward and only in a few species, including the devil, it opens backward. This structure makes it very difficult for its owner to access the inside of the bag, but it prevents dirt from getting in when digging.

Picky glutton

In search of food, these animals often dig in the ground, scour grass and bushes, climb trees (especially young ones), and rummage in shallow water. During the day, or rather during the night, the animal eats food in a volume equal to 15% of its own weight - for a small creature this is quite a lot.

It is clear that with such an appetite the devil cannot be picky about food. Any animal can become its prey, the main thing is that it can be grabbed by the mouth. But it shouldn’t be very large for the devil to deal with it: small mammals, birds, snakes, lizards, frogs, crayfish, large insects, worms, mollusks...



It is believed that the eyes of this animal cannot stand daylight. But this does not prevent him from sunbathing and even abusing it.

He does not neglect vegetarian food either, eating the succulent roots and tubers of some local plants. But its omnivorousness is still not limitless: chewed but undigested remains of carrots and corn cobs have been repeatedly found in devils’ droppings—the animal’s digestive system is not yet able to cope with unusual imported crops. By the way, pieces of rubber, scraps of foil, remains of leather boots and harnesses, towels, etc. were also found there.

But the main gastronomic attachment of the marsupial devil is carrion (which is reflected in its Latin generic name Sarcophilus, that is, “lover of carrion”). As is known, almost no predator refuses this resource, including such perfect hunters as lions and leopards. The devil is not just content with carrion: if he has a choice between fresh and rotten meat, he will prefer rotten meat. However, where these animals are found, the animal corpses usually do not have time to rot.

Table squabbles

Here, however, lies a problem: what type of intraspecific relationships best corresponds to such inclinations? Gathering and hunting small game require territoriality; these activities do not require assistants, but good knowledge of the individual area is very useful.

For a scavenger, territoriality is not at all suitable: with all the gluttony of a marsupial predator, it is not possible for him to eat the corpse of a horse or cow alone overnight, and the next time a lucky find will happen in another area.



Despite its relatively small size, the marsupial predator is very voracious. He can attack animals larger than himself

The devils found a compromise. Each of them has its own personal area (with an area of ​​8-20 km2), within which the animal usually moves. However, these are more likely favorite places than land property: the owner is not concerned about the inviolability of the boundaries of his possessions and does not rush to drive out a fellow tribesman who wanders there.

Neighboring plots may overlap, and if large prey is discovered somewhere, animals from all over the area flock there. Farmers talked about a pasture where one and a half hundred devils constantly found food for themselves. However, cattle breeders generally tell a lot about these animals, although not everything can be trusted. But a case has been reliably recorded when 22 devils fed simultaneously near one carcass.



By the end of the fourth month of life, the grown cubs leave the pouch, but for a long time they follow their mother everywhere and feed on her milk.

It’s difficult to call such meals peaceful: they are accompanied by constant mutual threats, which every now and then escalate into serious fights, and the heartbreaking screams of rivals can be heard for kilometers. This happens even if the carcass is large, but there are few eaters and there seems to be nothing to divide. It seems that for devils such feasts are valuable not only for the food, but also for the opportunity to quarrel with their neighbors.

Actually, such “squabbles at the table” are almost the only manifestation of the social life of marsupial devils, except for the need to procreate. Their short mating season occurs in the Tasmanian early autumn - March and early April. The female's pregnancy lasts 21 days. By the end of this period, she makes a nest of grass, leaves and bark in some secluded place (in a cave, under the roots of an upturned tree, in the hollow of a lying trunk, etc.).

Race for survival

What happens soon is more reminiscent of spawning than childbirth. From the womb of the mother, 20-30 are born, not even babies, but rather embryos a little more than a centimeter long and weighing from a sixth of a gram to a quarter.

Naked, blind, not fully formed pieces of living flesh crawl along the mother's belly towards the pouch. Giving birth to premature babies and making their own journey into the pouch is a common practice among marsupials, but for devils it turns into a brutal race for survival. No more than four prizes are awarded, depending on the number of nipples in the bag. Those who managed to get there will live, the rest are doomed. However, the female devil rarely waits to fill all four vacancies. Usually, after the first two or three have taken their places, the mother begins to destroy the excess offspring.



At the end of pregnancy, the female makes a nest of leaves and grass in a secluded place. It will be a home for her children when they leave the bag.

When the winning cubs grab the nipples with their mouths, they swell, forming, together with the infants' mouths, a kind of fastener-buttons. From this point on, it is impossible to separate the cubs from the teats without injury. They don't even suck - the milk is literally squirted down their throats.

In this state, the cubs spend many weeks, much longer than in the mother’s womb. Only by the end of the third month do they become completely covered with hair, at about the same time their eyes open and the ability to tear away from the nipple appears. After another month, the cubs (each of which by this time already weighs about 200 grams) leave the pouch, but the mother continues to feed them milk. At the end of December, six-month-old devils leave their mother and move on to independent life. In the first few months after this, more than half of them die from hunger, disease and attacks by predators.



While a young animal can become prey for a marsupial marten or a large feathered predator, adult animals have no natural enemies. Today, the Tasmanian devil is the largest marsupial predator in the world. This title passed to him after his fellow countryman and distant relative, the Tasmanian marsupial wolf (thylacine), disappeared from the face of the Earth in the 1930s.

The same fate almost befell the devil himself: when Europeans arrived in Tasmania, voracious predators quickly mastered a new food resource - poultry (according to farmers, they also attacked sheep, but, most likely, these were isolated cases). In response, man declared unlimited war on the devil himself, especially since the settlers considered his meat tasty, reminiscent of veal.

People quickly discovered the animal's weak point: the smell of meat, especially rotten meat, makes it forget about all caution and recklessly go even into obvious traps. By the end of the 1930s, the marsupial devil was on the verge of extinction, but in 1941 the Australian government completely banned hunting of these animals.



This animal is distinguished by super-powerful jaws, and its molars are adapted for biting and crushing large bones

By the end of the 20th century, the threat seemed to have completely passed: 100,000 - 150,000 individuals lived on the island. But in 1999, an outbreak of a strange disease not found in any other animals began, called DFTD (devil facial tumor disease). On the face, usually near the mouth, small tumors appear in animals; they grow quickly, merge, and spread to the entire head, and then to the entire body. Huge growths block the animal's eyes, ears and mouth, and it eventually dies of starvation.

The entire development of the disease takes a year and a half, the mortality rate is one hundred percent, there is no treatment. It is believed to be caused by an unknown virus transmitted through bites. Zoologists catch and isolate sick individuals, create reserve populations in captivity, and the disease, which has already killed, according to various estimates, from 20 to 50% of the devilish population, does not subside. (As of 2023, estimates of the population of Tasmanian devils vary from 10,000 to 25,000 individuals. - Note Vokrugsveta.ru)

True, historical sources indicate that outbreaks of this disease occurred before (at intervals from 77 to 150 years), but each time, having caused greater or lesser devastation, they spontaneously stopped. And in 2001, another threat loomed over the devils - European foxes entered Tasmania. The emergence of a more advanced competitor could lead to the complete disappearance of the marsupial predator, as has already happened in Australia, where devils lived 600 years ago, but completely disappeared before the arrival of Europeans, unable to withstand competition with dingoes.



Black shows the current distribution of the Tasmanian devil, excluding areas in New South Wales where the species has been reintroduced