Small Shelly Fauna

The Devil deals in dying and he travels in a hearse

I often ponder the question: if I could bring back one recently-extinct animal (that is, a historically present species eliminated by man), which one would it be? It's a very difficult choice, when you have dodos, moas, giant lemurs, flightless ibises, and mammoths to choose from. In the end, I usually find myself set on Steller's sea cow, but always close by is the thylacine, Thylacinus cynocephalus, the so-called "Tasmanian tiger." The thylacine was Australia's largest mammalian predator and one of the greatest examples of convergent evolution, being a marsupial strikingly similar to placental wolves. The last recorded individual died in 1930, and although there have been scattered sightings since, these are highly dubious, and the animal is almost certainly extinct (that said, the same was said about the ivory-billed woodpecker, recently rediscovered in Arkansas, so you always have to hold out hope). With the extinction of the thylacine, the title of largest marsupial predator fell to the notorious Tasmanian devil, Sarcophilus harrisii. But unfortunately, it appears that this creature, remarkable in its own right, may also be on the fast track to extinction. The cause this time around is not human overhunting (as with the thylacine), but a mysterious plague that has ravaged devil populations. The plague, dubbed "Devil Facial Tumour Disease", produces cancerous lesions on the devil's head and tumors that spread through the neck and body. The disease apparently acts within months and scientists have estimated that it may already have claimed some 75,000 devils, half of the entire population of the species. Still unknown is how the disease spreads or what pathogen is involved: the ridiculously frightening current hypothesis is that it is actually a transmissable form of cancer. Communicable cancer has been recorded before in dogs, where certain cancer cells actually became an STD, spreading cancer among individuals. (It should be noted that the cancer cells themselves are implicated in the transmission here, as opposed to the host of pathogens for which tumors are one of the effects). The canine cancer never reached the epidemic proportions seen in the Tasmanian devils, however. Australian researchers are directing intense effort towards studying and trying to stop the disease, but have thus far met with little success. I'm rather worried by this whole affair, and I hope that progress is made soon, lest an amazing mammalian species and noted Looney Toon share the fate of the thylacine.