IT is best known as a wild, whirling, snarling beast from Warner Bros. cartoons.

But while the Loony Tunes character Taz the Tasmanian Devil will live on forever in animation, in reality the species is facing extinction – and they only have themselves to blame.

The carnivore’s own vicious nature is seeing scores of them killed by an infectious form of cancer passed on through their bites.

But a dedicated team of scientists at the University of Southampton is coming to their rescue thanks to a cash boost.

While they may be on the other side of the world, the city researchers are on a mission to save them from extinction.

Daily Echo:

Biologist Dr Hannah Siddle, (pictured above) is aiming to develop an effective vaccine to fight the cancer which is threatening the future of the world’s largest marsupial carnivore.

Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD) is a rare contagious facial tumour, which emerged from a cell in a single Tasmanian devil more than 18 years ago.

But although it only started in one of the animals, it has spread rapidly from devil to devil through them biting one another.

A bite from an infected devil causes tumours to the victim which form predominantly around the face and neck and prove fatal in almost all cases.

Thanks to £183,000 funding from the Leverhulme Trust to the university, Dr Siddle will lead a three-year research project to understand how the disease moves between the animals and then use this information to design a vaccine.

The research could improve understanding of how cancers avoid the immune system and may have implications for cancer treatment in humans, say the university.

Dr Siddle says: “This contagious cancer is very unusual in that the cancer cells can move between animals.

“We are looking for the proteins that make the tumour cells different to the host devils that they infect and then use these ‘tumour specific’ proteins to design a vaccine that could save the Tasmanian devil from extinction.”

The devil is the top carnivore in Tasmania and its loss would be disastrous for the island’s ecosystem, she added.

The creatures, which can grow to around 30 inches in length and weigh up to 8kg, became extinct on mainland Australia around 3,000 years ago and it is believed they were wiped out by dingoes, which are absent on Tasmania.