Abstract
The Tasmanian devil, Sarcophilus harrisii (Boitard), is the largest of living dasyurid marsupials, except for the doubtfully extant thylacine or Tasmanian tiger, Thylacinus cynocephalus. Recent ecological studies have investigated its numbers, diet and economic importance (Green, 1967; Guiler 1970a, b and c), and some aspects of its behaviour have also been reported. Early accounts (for example, Le Souef and Burrell, 1926) gave some details of agonistic behaviour, vocalisations and maintenance activities, which have been augmented in more recent reviews of marsupial biology (Walker, 1964; Troughton, 1965; Ride, 1970). Fleay (1935, 1952) described methods of fighting, grooming and comfort behaviour, resting, feeding, drinking, and changes in behaviour associated with individual development, and Guiler (1964, 1971) and Green (1967) gave further details of maintenance activities and social behaviour. Other studies by Ewer (1969) and Moeller (1972a, b, c; 1974) focused exclusively on prey-killing and feeding behaviour of the species. The Tasmanian devil is of considerable interest as a carnivorous marsupial successfully adapting to a changing environment. Field studies are difficult because of their mainly nocturnal activities, dark colour, cryptic habits and timidity towards man. The present study is based mainly on captive devils observed over several years at the University of Tasmania, and forms part of a series of continuing projects on selected problems of dasyurid behaviour. Our conclusions on prey-killing and feeding, agonistic interactions and social communication, and cloacal dragging, are drawn mainly from quantitative records; full reports will be published elsewhere.
O. L. K. Buchmann is a graduate of the University of Aberdeen, now a lecturer in zoology at the University of Tasmania. He is especially interested in behaviour of marsupials, population regulation, learning, stress and experimentally induced neurosis.
Dr E. R. Guiler is a graduate of Queen’s College, Belfast, and of the University of Tasmania, where he is at present a reader in zoology. He has worked on Tasmanian devils since 1966, and is interested in field ecology and its relation to whole-animal biology.
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© 1977 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Buchmann, O.L.K., Guiler, E.R. (1977). Behaviour and ecology of the Tasmanian devil, Sarcophilus harrisii. In: Stonehouse, B., Gilmore, D. (eds) The Biology of Marsupials. Studies in Biology, Economy and Society. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02721-7_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02721-7_9
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