COLUMBUS – Anyone who has wondered if a real Tasmanian devil bears any resemblance to the classic Warner Brothers cartoon character will be able to find out soon by visiting the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium where three of the marsupials have arrived.
Spoiler alert: They don‘t.
Three one-year-old Tasmanian devils – two males and one female — arrived in Columbus last Thursday – and after their time in arrival quarantine will move into a brand-new habitat in the zoo’s Australia and the Islands region, zoo president and CEO Tom Stalf said.
The Columbus Zoo is one of only seven North American zoos to house the devils.
Female Thyme and males Mustard and Sprout (pictured left to right above) are the first Tasmanian devils to reside at the zoo in over 20 years and have been brought in as part of the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program, the official response by the Tasmanian government to the threat of extinction of the Tasmanian devil due to the Devil Facial Tumour Disease, an extremely contagious fatal condition.
A regular schedule for public viewing has not yet been set.
Tasmanian devils are the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial and live from the coastal plains to the mountains of Tasmania, an island state of Australia.
Relative to body size, Tasmanian devils have an even stronger bite than a Bengal tiger, Stalf said.