|
ZooNooz Article - DECEMBER 2008
Smart little devils
It only took a short time. There was a lot of screaming,
snarling, grunting and biting. But finally it happened. Both
our zoos now have baby Tasmanian Devils.
Steve McAuley
reports. Photographs Shallon McReaddie and Rick Stevens
Mating for Tasmanian Devils is a
rough and raucous affair. When
a female is on heat she can take
her pick of males - and in the first
couple of days she moves from
one male to another to advertise
herself and to find the strongest
and fittest mate.
But she doesn't
have it all her own way. If a male
really wants a female, he will
protect his interests by keeping
her in his den, mating with her as
often as he can, and dragging her
back if she tries to escape and look
for something better. This initially
involves a lot of noise and quite a
bit of wrestling, then the female
goes into a trance-like state until
the end of oestrus. During this
time, just to make life a bit easier,
she develops a large fatty lump on
the back of her neck - something
for the male to sink his teeth into
as he drags her around. It's also a
bit of extra protection for her.
After all this rough housing,
the female leaves and goes back
to a den of her own. After a
pregnancy of about three weeks,
she gives birth to between 30 and
40 babies, each one no bigger than
an orange pip and weighing about
.2 grams. But she only has four
nipples in her pouch so it's a race
to see which of the babies reach
the pouch, attach themselves to
the nipples and survive, and which
drop off into the leaf litter.
The female devil's pouch
points backwards, so the four
survivors have some tricky times
ahead. As they grow, they outstrip
the size of the pouch and dangle
down between mum's legs, getting
dragged along as she runs through
the scrub. They leave the pouch at
four months and then stay in the
den for another four until they are
weaned. The young devils leave
home when they are about a year
old to live their solitary adult lives.
In the middle of the year, four
female devils were born at Taronga
Zoo and nine more at Taronga
Western Plains. (A total of 34 were
born in mainland Australian zoos.)
The most exciting thing about
these little devils is that they are
all free of the facial tumour disease
which has devastated the wild
Tasmanian population. It's a major
step forward in the battle to save
Australia's largest marsupial
carnivore from extinction.
To support the National
Insurance Breeding
Program for Tasmanian
Devils go to
www.tassiedevilappeal.org
Want to read more?
By joining as a Zoo Friends member we send you a full colour, glossy magazine
each quarter as part of your membership package. Join
now.
« Back to ZooNooz
article listing
|
