Today is not only #MarsupialMonday, but it's also the inaugural #InternationalTasmanianDevilDay !
Here is the first published image of a Tasmanian Devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) from 1808, initially described as the "Bear Opossum," alongside the first published image of a Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus), similarly described as the "Dog-Headed Opossum" or "Zebra Opossum."*** Both images are from sketches made in 1806 by George Prideaux Harris, an Assistant Surveyor in Hobart Town. Harris sent these sketches and descriptions of the two "new" animals to Joseph Banks, who presented them at a meeting of The Linnean Society of London in 1807. They were then published in 1808 in the Transactions of the Linnean Society of London Vol. IX, "Descriptions of two new Species of Didelphis from Van Diemen's Land. By G. P. Harris, Esq. Communicated by the Right Honourable Sir Joseph Banks."
Plate: Didelphis ursina and Didelphis cynocephala, tab. 19. p. 174.
***At this point, Europeans still tended to dub most marsupials they encountered as opossums, as that was the first and only marsupial they had known of before encountering all the Australasian ones. And they didn't even know what those were until post-1492, so...marsupials were still really confusing to Europeans LOL!