Tasmanian Devils

The law that protects the Tasmanian Devil and other native Australian fauna and flora is the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

See the related link for more details.

At most, a female Tasmanian devil can carry only four joeys, as there are only four teats in the mother's pouch.

A female Tasmanian devil actually may have several dozen tiny embryos in one birth - anywhere between 20 and 40 - so apart from the ones which do make it to the pouch, the rest are lost.

The average number of Tasmanian Devil joeys that a mother may be rearing at any one time is 2-3.

Geographically, Australia is a continent, not an island. As a landform, it could be considered an island as it is entirely surrounded by water and not joined onto any other land mass. For this reason, it is often referred to as an island continent. Australia is too big to be formallyclassified as an island. The world's largest island is Greenland.

Another reason why Australia is also considered a continent is because it sits on its own tectonic plate. This is different from Greenland, which uses the same land mass as North America. That is why the geological appearances are much different in Australia from anywhere else. A place like Greenland shares the same geologic attributes as North America.

Australia and Antarctica are the only two true Continental Islands. That is, they are separated from all other continents by water. All other continents are connected by a landmass to at least one other Continent. If there are any waterways, they have been artificially created.

If the question means "What animals are most closely related to the Tasmanian Devil?", then the four species of quolls are most closely related to the Tasmanian Devil.

The Tasmanian devil is the only member of its genus Sarcophilus. However, besides the quoll, other relatives include the numbat, the now-extinct Tylacine (Tasmanian tiger) and the antechinus.

To answer the question in the simplest way, the Tasmanian devil has a backbone.

However, there is more to it than that, especially given that there are two invertebrate chordate groups - Urochordata (tunicates) and Cephalachordata (lancelets) - whose backbone is not in the form of actual vertebrae.

As Chordates (or members of the phylum Chordata), Tasmanian devils share the following characteristics:

dorsal nerve cord which is a bundle of nerve fibres which runs down the back. It connects the brain with the lateral muscles and other organs.

notochordwhich is a cartilaginous rod running underneath, and supporting, the nerve cord - in the case of the cockatoo, a spine.

post-anal tail - an extension of the body past the anal opening. (This feature is not always present in some adult Chordates such as frogs and humans, but it is present in the cockatoo.)

Pharyngeal pouches - Chordates, at some stage of their life, have pharyngeal grooves and pouches that develop into other essential parts of their anatomy.