for two more hours. During this time, the devil drank water and showed no visible signs of discomfort, leading scientists to believe that sweating and evaporative cooling is its primary means of heat dissipation. A later study found that devils pant but do not sweat to release heat. In contrast, many other marsupials were unable to keep their body temperatures down. As the smaller animals have to live in hotter and more arid conditions to which they are less well-adapted, they take up a nocturnal lifestyle and drop their body temperatures during the day, whereas the devil is active in the day and its body temperature varies by from its minimum at night to the maximum in the middle of the day. The standard metabolic rate of a Tasmanian devil is 141 kJ/kg (15.3 kcal/lb) per day, many times lower than smaller marsupials. A devil uses per day. The field metabolic rate is 407 kJ/kg (44.1 kcal/lb). Along with quolls, Tasmanian devils have a metabolic rate comparable to non-carnivorous marsupials of a similar size. This differs from placental carnivores, which have comparatively high basal metabolic rates. A study of devils showed a loss of weight from from summer to winter, but in the same time, daily energy consumption increased from . This is equivalent to an increase in food consumption from . The diet is protein-based with 70% water content. For every of insects consumed, of energy are produced, while a corresponding amount of wallaby meat generated . In terms of its body mass, the devil eats only a quarter of the eastern quoll's intake, allowing it to survive longer during food shortages. Feeding Tasmanian devils can take prey up to the size of a small kangaroo, but in practice they are opportunistic and eat carrion more often than they hunt live prey. Although the devil favours wombats because of the ease of predation and high fat content, it will eat all small native mammals such as wallabies, bettong and potoroos, domestic mammals (including sheep and rabbits), birds (including penguins), fish, fruit, vegetable matter, insects, tadpoles, frogs and reptiles. Their diet is widely varied and depends on the food available. Before the extinction of the thylacine, the Tasmanian devil ate thylacine joeys left alone in dens when their parents were away. This may have helped to hasten the extinction of the thylacine, which also ate devils. They are known to