A Tasmanian devil has been captured displaying never-before-seen behaviour that has shocked researchers – and changed perceptions they are solitary animals.
Video footage shows a female Tasmanian devil sitting and waiting for a male companion for four hours after he got stuck in a trap.
The Save the Tasmanian Devil Program set up video cameras that caught the unusual behaviour in the state’s south-west, ABC reported.
A female Tasmanian devil was caught waiting for her male companion for four hours after he got caught in a trap (pictured)
Dr David Pemberton, manager of the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program said researchers questioned what the female marsupial was trying to do and initially thought she was trying to source food.
They realised the female chose to lie down and wait for her companion – something that had never been seen before.
‘The fact they arrived together, and that fact that she waited, really implies that they are socialising, travelling together, they know each other, and of course the dogma is that these are solitary animals,’ Dr Pemberton said.
The unlikely footage ties into recent genetic studies on Maria Island that revealed male and female devils have chosen to breed together over multiple years, Dr Pemberton said.
‘Considering a devil only lives for six or seven years in the wild, this could imply, through this sort of footage and the genetics, that some of these animals are mating for life.’

Recent research has suggested that the devils – who typically live for six years in the wild – are choosing to mate for life
Researchers have suggested that the two devils could have been mates, siblings or companions hunting together.
The cameras were introduced to monitor the genetic diversity of the devils amid researchers worrying about low breeding rates and poor genetic diversity.
‘It’s definitely a major threat. It could cause local extinctions, those low levels of breeding, unless there is dispersal in from another healthy population,’ Dr Pemberton said.
Eighty per cent of the species across the state had previously been wiped out by facial tumour disease.