MYSTIFIED MOTORIST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26980, 15 January 1949, Page 6

MYSTIFIED MOTORIST

STRANGE ROADSIDE FIND TASMANIAN DEVIL FROM ZOO Special to the Daily Times WELLINGTON, Jan. 14. A very mystified motorist this week was Mr S. Hogg, of Happy Valley. Early in the morning while travelling along the Hutt road to his work at Taita, Mr Hogg saw what he thought to be a particularly large black opossum lying on the road. He stopped his car but found that the animal was like no opossum he had ever seen. It looked more like a small pig. There was still blood running from its mouth and it was obvious that it had been run over shortly before he came along. Mr Hogg showed the dead animal to an official of the Wild Life Division of the Department of Internal Affairs who could only say that it looked like a cross between a cat and a pig, so he took it to the Dominion Museum. There the animal was identified as a stranger to New Zealand, a Tasmanian devil. The mystery was unravelled by the curator of the Wellington Zoo, Mr C. J. Cutler, who explained that it had gone missing from the zoo two days previously. “There is no doubt that the lock of its cage was forced by someone who stole the devil,” he said. “We immediately removed the other animal to a new cage and were relieved when we heard that the missing one had turned up.” It would not travel to where it was found, continued Mr Cutler. It must have been taken out of the zoo. It was quite tame and playful with the keeper and someone must have thought it would make a pet. They have often been confused with dogs. They are not as vicious as their name would suggest and are mainly noise and action. They are carnivorous and in Tasmania, live on rats and mice and on fish from ponds which have dried out. The landed cost of the devil was about £4 10s and it had been in the zoo for three months.