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below. The devil’s throat was now as white as Mount Wellington snow. From now on other bush animals could see the devil coming before Wing-go-wing could bite them. Wing-go-wing screamed at Be-U. The devil’s voice, though, was now harsh and gravely. The sand had changed the devil’s noise. The other bush animals would hear her coming and know to run away before it was too late. Be-U, hanging by his tail, laughed at Wing-go-wing, and was very happy that he could help his bush friends. But he knew he would always have to be watchful, especially at night, of Tasmanian devils who were hungry . . . and angry . . . 1
    T he Tasmanian devil has the distinction of being the world’s largest living marsupial carnivore, though since an adult male devil seldom weighs more than 12 kilograms the species cannot be compared with dominant placental carnivores in other parts of the world, such as lions, tigers and wolves. Many factors, operating across millions of years, have resulted in the devil occupying this unique position.

    These prints on an iced-over creek demonstrate the unusual gait of the devil, which may have descended from an arboreal ancestor that hopped along branches. (Courtesy Nick Mooney)
    Australia once formed part of the southern hemisphere super-continent of Gondwana, together with what would become South America, Antarctica, Madagascar, New Zealand, India and Africa. While it is not known precisely how Australia’s marsupials evolved, fragmentary fossil evidence suggests that lineages of protomarsupial stocks originating in South America journeyed across the then-temperate Antarctic landmass. Australia became a continent about 45 million years ago, floating free with a cargo of flora and fauna that would evolve in isolation until the continent collided with the Indonesian archipelago. That isolation enabled marsupials to diversify free of competition, but the ‘floating laboratory’ created competition of another kind, in the form of major climate changes brought about by variation in global weather patterns, Australia’s northward movement towards the equator, and the southern hemisphere ocean, wind and pressure changes created by that movement. Enormous inland seas and tropical forests came and went, periodically giving way to colder, drier conditions.
    Although the continent had at times supported big mountain ranges, its general overall flatness provided little protection from the subantarctic winds that scoured away much of its surface. The remaining nutrient-poor soils, increasing surface salinity, decreasing rainfall, and extreme fluctuations between day-time heat and night-time cold, determined the long-term evolution of unique, often sparse, tree, plant and grass forms. Australia’s herbivores developed accordingly. They became either nocturnal or crepuscular (active at dawn and dusk) browsers and grazers. There were none of the vast herds of grazing animals that developed on the lush grasslands of Africa and North America, for example, so there was limited scope for predators.
    The devil’s unknown ancestors may well have been tree-dwellers, eating insects, nectar, fruits and young leaves. As those creatures grew larger, their hind legs may have begun to operate in unison to cope with moving along branches, leading eventually to the hopping gait that is characteristic of many marsupials. This may even explain the devil’s unusual gait.
    The devil’s specific lineage appears to be a result of dramatic climate change around the middle of the Miocene Epoch (16 million–5 million years ago). Australia had experienced a long period of warm, moist conditions. Inland seas and rivers dominated the continent and supported a great variety of animal, bird and aquatic life. Not surprisingly, many types of predators flourished in that period. But the rapid onset of the first of many ice ages changed that. Colder, drier conditions shrank the forests until, ‘at its