AUSTRALIA: A mystery virus is wiping out the Tasmanian devil, the bone-chomping, carrion-eating marsupial carnivore renowned for its blood-curdling screams and fierce temperament.
The cancer, which causes horrific tumours on the animals' face, has reduced some local populations by more than 90 per cent.
Scientists are baffled as to the nature of the retrovirus and fear it could result in the Tasmanian devil going the same way as the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine, which was hunted to extinction in the 1930s.
"It's exceptionally severe and we don't know where it's come from," said Mr Nick Mooney, a biologist with the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service. "There's probably nothing we can do apart from make some decisions about isolating healthy populations to make sure the species survives."
The virus was first detected in 1996 but has spread rapidly in central and eastern parts of Tasmania over the last two years.
"I've not seen anything as horrible as this cancer," said Mr Brad Chadwick, a scientist at the government-run Animal Health Laboratory in the town of Launceston. "In the end the animals die of starvation because their faces are so eaten away."
Having conducted post-mortems on 20 cancer-ridden Tasmanian devils, Dr Chadwick is no closer to understanding the virus. "All the evidence suggests it is a disease which is new to science," he said.
Until recently, Tasmanian devils were relatively common, with an estimated population of 150,000. They were often seen at night feasting on roadkill such as wallabies and wombats. However researchers fear the virus could reduce their numbers by 70 per cent in the next few years unless a cure is found.
Famously portrayed in a Warner Brothers cartoon character as half-crazed killers, Tasmanian devils are in fact shy, nocturnal animals. They are believed to have been ousted from the Australian mainland by dingoes about 600 years ago and are now found only in Tasmania.
The size of a small dog, they have tremendously powerful jaws designed to crunch through bone. They can eat up to 40 per cent of their body weight in just 30 minutes and have a fondness for wombat and dead livestock.
Conservationists fear that the demise of the devil could lead to an increase in the number of foxes in Tasmania. About 30 are thought to have been deliberately introduced to the island recently in what wildlife experts have branded an act of "ecological terrorism".
"This could be the leg-up that foxes have been waiting for," Mr Mooney said. "Devils compete for the same kind of food but if they are wiped out, the foxes could become established and that would be disastrous for our native wildlife."
A similar virus is now affecting koala populations on the Australian mainland, although it manifests itself as a form of leukaemia. Scientists have no idea how the two are linked.