Drive

Tasmanian devils are one of Australia’s most iconic animals, and their name explains their reputation pretty clearly. While their bad-tempered, dangerous image may be sometimes undeserved, during mating the season, the animals are known to get quite aggressive. Since the mid-1990s, a cancer known as the Devil facial tumour disease, has been severely affecting the population of the Tasmanian devil and new research published online in the journal Behavioral Ecology looked at the rates of infection in relation to mating. David Hamilton, PhD candidate in Zoology at the University of Tasmania and one of the researchers involved in the study, had a conversation with Ruby on Drive on his research.