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Abstract
Based on a review here, the most recent Tasmanian devil remains on the mainland date from between 3000 and 4000 years BP in three isolated populations. A widely promulgated recent date within the last 500 years is rejected. Previous studies have found the arrival of the dingo (>3500 BP) to be the only suitable coincident extinction cause, although Aboriginal cultural changes have also been recently implicated. I propose that increased climate variability associated with the onset of the El Niño Southern Oscillation after 6000 BP and a subsequent intensification ca 3000 BP was also a causative factor. Other causes are not rejected, but rather all are placed within a multicausal model. Tasmanian devils are particularly susceptible to climate variability because they are the only specialised scavenger in Australia. Specialised scavengers are mostly limited by variability in the availability of carrion, and this would have increased significantly with ENSO. The fossil record (and persistence in Tasmania) indicates a range contraction of Tasmanian devils from the late Pleistocene onwards towards isolated refugia into those parts of the country least affected by ENSO related climate variability.
