Q. Why are some individuals so dominant when feeding?
A. Basically, the most motivated animals are the most dominant. That usually means the most hungry animals are dominant. Typically, females which have young ones to care for, (especially if they are in a den and therefore not in danger with the female) need lots of food and are very aggressive at social feeding encounters. They typically are very dominant. If all individuals were of the same hunger level the largest one would likely be the most dominant.

Q. Do they come out in the day?
A. Where they are not harassed by people or dogs, devils love to very quietly and discreetly sun bake. All ages do this, the larger ones not necessarily being involved with the smaller ones. Lizards and devil pups have been seen out sunning themselves. The only animals that seem to feed in the daytime are very desperate or sick.

Q. Why do they make so much noise?
A. The noise is basically bluff to try and intimidate other animals so that there is no fight. Powerful animals like this often have sophisticated mechanisms to avoid fighting so they do not damage themselves. The sound helps sort pecking order.

Q. Why do they yawn?
A. The yawning is in part a displacement behaviour which is a redirection of nervous energy to something that's harmless. An example is a person scratching their head when a policeman is talking to them. A yawn also serves to demonstrate that they are an animal with large teeth and a big mouth, but mainly it is a displacement activity, a sign of low level stress.

Q. Why do they hold their tails up?
A. When they are very excited they hold their tail up no doubt as part of the body language to demonstrate to other devils that they mean business. When they are very angry they will hold their tail almost straight up. The tail can be held in many positions and the subtleties probably have much meaning in communicating the animals level of arousal or aggression to other devils.

Q. Why do they have fat tails?
A. Most marsupials store fat in their tails and a fat tail is usually a sign that an animal is in excellent condition.

Q. Why are some injured in the face?
A. Most Tasmanian devils with injuries on the face are adult males. Many of these injuries have been gained at the end of a mating period when the female fights off the male. Some of these injuries are obtained when males are fighting males for access to females. Very few injuries are caused at squabbles over food.

Q. Why do some Tasmanian devils have scars on the rump or neck?
A. The scars on the rump are mainly caused when animals back into other animals to try and push them away from food. Basically it is safer to be bitten on the very heavily armoured, thick skinned rump than on the face. Scars on the neck usually indicate the animal is a female. The scars are from hair loss caused by males holding the female to subdue them.

Q. Does artificial feeding do them harm?
A. As long as natural food is provided (such as dead wallabies that have not been poisoned but have died from road kill), artificial feeding does them no harm. In fact, by moving wallabies from roads to paddocks it probably saves many devils from being killed. Surveys of dead devils in one area of road showed that almost no devils were killed once dead wallabies had been removed from the road, compared to up to 10 road-killed Tasmanian devils per year when wallabies were left on this section of road. As long as feeding is not too regular and too much so that animals cannot become addicted to artificial food sources, feeding probably does no harm at all.

Q. Why do they fight so much?
A. Fighting, often superficial fighting without serious contact, is common because it is the basic mechanism for setting pecking order.

Q. Do they injure each other?
A. Very occasionally, mostly when they are fighting over mates, fighting during mating, and females injuring males. Rarely do they injure each other when fighting over food.

Q. Why do some feed peacefully?
A. Tasmanian devils vary enormously in personality. Some individuals are very calm and tolerant, others very excitable. It is possible that some animals seen feeding peacefully together are close relatives and therefore are more tolerant of each other. It is also possible that they are not so hungry and not very motivated to fight over food.

Q. Why do they eat so much?
A. Many predators eat large amounts, the main reason being that they may not get to eat again for some time. Basically is safer to have your food inside you rather than carry it around where it may be stolen!

Q. How much can they eat?
A. If they are not interrupted, Tasmanian devils can eat up to 40% of their body weight in 30 minutes. But as they need to consume about 15% of their body weight per day in the wild, even a huge feast like that would only keep them going for 2 or 3 days.

Q. What do they normally eat?
A. Tasmanian devils seem to eat any meat that is available. This includes birds, fish, even invertebrates such as moths and tadpoles, frogs and reptiles, and other mammals such as wallabies, echindas, platypus, wombats; in fact almost anything that they might find. They do have preferences. Tasmanian devils seem to very much like wombat. This is probably related to the rich fat content of the food. This is because not as much has to be eaten for the same calorie count. What is normally eaten generally reflects what is available. What is available does not always reflect abundance because some very common food might be very hard to get whereas some rare food might be very easy to get. In wilderness areas where there is not much carrion, devils hunt a lot. Small ones hunt moths, tadpoles, frogs, ground birds, anything they can catch. The larger ones hunt correspondingly larger prey - wallaby joeys, wallabies, even wombats. There are records of adult Tasmanian devils catching adult wombats. Any incapacitated animal trapped injured sick is likely to be killed even if several times the size of devils. Most predators work like that. Animals are killed mainly to keep them safe or still while being eaten.

Q. Do they eat stock such as lambs and sheep?
A. In some areas, particularly farm land, much already dead stock is eaten. Generally dead cows can only have small bits eaten - the udder, the mouth, the anus - because the skin is too thick for devils. Whole sheep can be eaten except for the large bones. Any small stock like sheep or lambs that are injured or incapacitated may be killed and eaten. New born lambs are sometimes at risk. If sheep have twins or triplets, weak members of the litters may be especially vulnerable. Poultry that roosts on the ground is also vulnerable. Most healthy stock is perfectly safe.

Q. Do they form packs?
A. As far as we know, Tasmanian devils do not form packs (a pack being an organised group of animals of the same species). However, devils can be found in one place in large numbers and they may even be trying to hunt the same animal. It does not mean they are organised even though the confusion they cause may give them advantages.

Q. How far do they travel?
A. Radio tracking has shown that many Tasmanian devils will travel 10 - 20 km in a night within their home range. They do not repeat the same movements every night. If they find food early then they may not travel very far at all. We are not yet sure how far immature animals disperse from their parents.

General Facts
Breeding and Pups
Devil Disease and Population

Information from the DPIW website

Further Information:

Contact: Wildlife Management Branch
Wildlife Management Branch
Department of Primary Industries and Water
134 Macquarie Street, GPO Box 44
Hobart TAS 7001
Phone: 03 6233 6556
Fax: 03 6233 3477
Email: wildlife.enq@dpiw.tas.gov.au