Report Suggests Cancer in Tasmanian Devils

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/tech/2006/feb/02/020206098.html

A mysterious illness that has killed tens of thousands of Tasmanian devils is caused by cancerous tumors that are spread by ferocious squabbling among the carnivorous marsupials, according to research published Thursday.

Numbers of the black, fox-sized scavengers with a bloodcurdling growl and powerful jaws that crunch through the bones of much larger animals have plunged in the past decade on Australia's island state of Tasmania, which is their only natural habitat.

Researchers estimate the wild population has fallen from 140,000 in the 1990s to 80,000 due to devil facial tumor disease (DFTD), a mystery illness that creates grotesque tumors on the animals' snouts that lead to starvation within a year.

But while many scientists had suspected a virus, the journal Nature published research Thursday that points to a unique, infectious cancer that is spread when devils bite each other, usually on the face, as they violently squabble over carcasses.

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[tmooses]

1. Cancer passed on by bites-now that's scary.

[Dead_Parrot]

2. Got Garlic? nt