Believing it to be a type of opossum, naturalist George Harris wrote the first published description of the Tasmanian devil in 1807, naming it Didelphis ursina, due to its bearlike characteristics such as the round ear. He had … 展开

The Tasmanian devil was formerly present across mainland Australia, but became extinct there 3,500 years ago, co-incident with the extinction of the … 展开

The cause of the devil's disappearance from the mainland is unclear, but their decline seems to coincide with an abrupt change in climate and the expansion across the mainland of 展开

• Mammals portal
• Fauna of Australia
• Threatened fauna of Australia
• List of adaptive radiated marsupials by form 展开

The Tasmanian devil is the largest surviving carnivorous marsupial. It has a squat, thick build, with a large head and a tail which is about half its body length. Unusually for a marsupial, its forelegs are slightly longer than its hind legs, and devils can run up to 13 km/h … 展开

The Tasmanian devil is a keystone species in the ecosystem of Tasmania. It is a nocturnal and crepuscular hunter, spending the days in … 展开

At Lake Nitchie in western New South Wales in 1970, a male human skeleton wearing a necklace of 178 teeth from 49 different devils was found. … 展开