A Tasmanian devil (Menna Jones)Few things in nature are as gruesome as devil facial tumor disease, the deadly cancer ravaging Tasmanian devil populations. In the 20 years since it was first discovered, DFTD has killed at least 80 percent of the wild Tasmanian devil population. Tasmanian devils have very little genetic diversity among them, because their population has been through several bottlenecks — periods when a sharp decline in population left just a small number of Tasmanian devils to spawn the next generation. I don’t know necessarily they would provide complete resistance but they could be more related to resistance once infected," Storfer said. Since the first contagious cancer was found in Tasmanian devils in 1996, another version emerged.

Source: Washington Post August 30, 2016 15:00 UTC