Sydney ? A Tasmanian devil named Cedric, once thought to be immune to a contagious facial cancer threatening the iconic creatures with extinction, has been euthanized after succumbing to the disease, researchers said today.

The death of the devil — previously heralded as a possible key to saving the species — is another blow for scientists struggling to stop the rapid spread of the cancer, which is transmitted when the furry black marsupials bite each other.

“It was very disappointing indeed,” said scientist Alex Kreiss of the Menzies Research Institute in Hobart, Tasmania, which has led the studies on Cedric. “It’s just made us more determined to keep the research going.”

The Tasmanian devil population has plummeted by 70 percent since Devil Facial Tumor Disease was first discovered in 1996. The snarling, fox-sized creatures — made famous by their Looney Tunes cartoon namesake Taz — don’t exist in the wild outside Tasmania, an island state south of the Australian mainland.