According to the latest news, Australia’s iconic Tasmanian devil is breeding far before from its usual time so as to beat cancer. This form of cancer known as Devil Facial Tumour Disease is very infectious and is decimating this wild population.
Usually the cells of one individual rejects the cells from different individual, but the devils are inbred type so the cancer cell from one individual are infecting the others.
This disease threatens the survival of the devils as the malignant tumours formed prevent the animals from eating. In severe cases it pushes out the teeth and invades the eye sockets of the animals. It ultimately kills the victims within a year of their reaching adulthood.
Although they are serial breeders this disease is forcing them to do precocious sexual behavior, in their equivalent of young teenage human years. As now they only survive long enough to breed once and even then do not survive long enough to wean them.
“We have found that devils are compensating for the disease by breeding early - there is a sixteen-fold increase in the number breeding at the age of one year,” said Dr Menna Jones, head of the research team of the University of Tasmania.
The first symptoms were noted in 1996. By 2007 the disease had spread across half of the devil’s range on the island of Tasmania, including most major populations. About 90% of drop of population has been noticed in the Affected population.
The computer models says that the entire population could be extinct in the wild by around 2030.
“Much of the focus of the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program at present is on establishing comprehensive captive and wild insurance populations, I am conducting a field trial in disease suppression. We have succeeded in turning around the epidemic but it is too early to say whether we can eradicate the disease in the wild on a local scale yet. There is also work under way to assess the potential for a vaccine.” said Dr Jones.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Filed under Cancer, Health
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