319: Tasmanian Devil

Ellen gives the Tasmanian devil his due. We discuss mythbusters, cranial real estate, the masculine urge to bite your fingers off, which came first: the chicken or the egg, dump stats, contagious cancer, and so much more.
Works Cited:
• "Too hot for the devil? Did climate change cause the mid-Holocene extinction of the Tasmanian devil Sarcophilus harrisii from mainland Australia?" (nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.111…) - Shane D. Morris et al., Ecography, Dec 2021
• "Holocene Demographic Changes and the Emergence of Complex Societies in Prehistoric Australia" (journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/j…) - Alan N. Williams et al., PLOS One, June 2015
• "Bite club: comparative bite force in big biting mammals and the prediction of predatory behaviour in fossil taxa" (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1564077) - Stephen Wroe, Colin McHenry & Jeffrey Thomason, Proc Biol Sci, March 2005
• "Saving our darling devils" (australiangeographic.com.au/nature-wildlife/20…), Esme Mathis, Australian Geographic, January 2026
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