Tasmanian Devils are black with a white mark on the chest and rump, and look similar to a medium sized solid dog. Their tracks are in a diamond pattern: a single pawprint, followed by two pawprints side by side, and then another single print. They have a rocking movement when they run, at a top speed of about 13 kilometres per hour.
The Tasmanian devil hunts at night and spends the day in a burrow. Tasmanian devils have powerful jaws that can bite through bones. The can open their mouths in a very wide gape. When several gather at one carcass, they growl and screech loudly, but rarely injure each other. This bone-chilling screeching gave the devil its name: early settlers thought that they sounded like devils in the night.
Generally Tasmanian devils eat dead animals they find. This is an important activity because they clean up dead carcasses, which keeps the bush clean and on farms prevent sheep getting infected by maggots. However, they can also hunt and kill birds, reptiles and small mammals. Like many marsupials, devils can retain fat in their tails to keep up nutrition when there is little food around.
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