Contagious cancer in Tasmanian Devils
BRANDON KEIM (WIRED):
Their numbers decimated by a virulent and contagious form of cancer, endangered Tasmanian devils are breeding at ever-younger ages.
Since it was first reported in 1996, devil facial tumor disease has wiped out more than half of the ferocious marsupials. The cancer is invariably fatal and typically kills the devils between two and three years of age, their traditional sexual primes. The species could be extinct within a few decades.
But evolution is fighting back: researchers have observed a 16-fold increase in precocious sexual maturity, with animals as young as one now breeding. READ IT ALL
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