Tasmanian Devil found in Gippsland

[Deleted]

Tassie devil found at Wonthaggi

www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2009/03/27/65971_latest-news.html
Leslie White

March 27, 2009

VICTORIAN Government agencies were today scrambling to investigate the discovery of a dead Tasmanian Devil on a road near Wonthaggi in South Gippsland.
However The Weekly Times has learned the animal is likely an escapee from a wildlife park about 30km away.

The Weekly Times obtained an email, originating from Parks Victoria, which contained pictures of the animal and disclosed the exact location where the animal was found.

The email claimed the body was still warm when found at 7am yesterday, and was being transferred to Cranbourne by Government staff. .. snip ..

[mingle]

Well-spotted QFT!

Wonder if the Wildlife Park tags their exhibits (electronically)?

Does anyone know if there was any evidence of differing morphology between Tasmanian tassie devils and the mainland ones?

Same goes for the Thylacine...?

Cheers,

Mike.

[Deleted]

Sorry, can't take any credit. I was told about it this morning .. but it's bad form to blow their scoop. Thought the story was s'posed to appear in the Sentinel Times first.

Any more background, you guys? Uh, like it's definitely, positively been ID'd as the animal park escapee, right?

[youcantry]

Mingle - some DNA work has been done on the devils now residing in Museum Victoria. That showed them to be not significantly different from Tasmanian stock. Either the mainland population has hung on, and was essentially identical (for comparison, the platypus does differ genetically between Tasmania and the mainland, but not sufficiently to warrant classification as a separate or sub species), or every devil found so far has been an escapee of Tasmanian origin, or Tasmanian Tasmanian devils have established themselves on the mainland and descendants have been found.

QFT - It has not been confirmed whether the devil came from Maru Koala Park - but that park lost a male devil 2 weeks ago and the roadkill was found about 500 metres away.

See mainlanddevils.com - follow the link on the homepage to get to the full-page write-up. At the bottom of that there are links to view the locations in Google Maps or Earth.

Chris.

[youcantry]

Just realised - didn't directly answer your question, mingle. I don't know if anyone has compared historical mainland specimens directly with Tasmanian counterparts. I'd assume that if they had, and if they were different, they wouldn't be calling both forms the "Tasmanian devil" - instead they'd have suggested two different species or a subspecies.

Chris.