Tasmania is the only natural habitat of the Tasmanian devil, a carnivorous marsupial found on the island south of mainland Australia.
Tasmanian devils once lived across mainland Australia, but they disappeared there roughly 3,000 to 3,500 years ago. Scientists associate that extinction with a combination of changing climate, increasing human activity and the spread of dingoes, which never reached Tasmania because Bass Strait separated the island from the mainland.
Today, devils occupy much of Tasmania, from coastal heath and dry woodland to mixed forest and areas near farms. They are mainly nocturnal scavengers and hunters, eating carrion, wallabies, possums, wombats and many smaller animals. Their powerful jaws allow them to consume bones, fur and almost every part of a carcass.
The species is endangered, largely because of Devil Facial Tumour Disease, a contagious cancer first recognized in Tasmania in the 1990s. Devils have also been reintroduced to protected mainland sites, but those managed populations do not change Tasmania’s status as their natural stronghold.