The spreading epidemic of facial tumors has wiped out as much as 60 percent of the devil population, and the disease can often kill within months.

The cancer is spread directly between devils through biting during the mating season.

Researchers from the University of Tasmania say that there has been a 16-fold increase in the number of animals breeding at the age of only one year.

"Before the disease, the modal female began seasonal breeding at age 2 and produced a litter annually for 3 years, with ... death occurring in her fifth or sixth year," the team wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

They point out that females now generally have only one opportunity in their lives to breed, and may not survive long enough to rear that litter.

Photo: University of Tasmania
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