The Critter That Breeds Itself to Death

Faline · #1 ● 10-13-2013, 12:59 PM

This innocent-looking marsupial is a sex machine that spends the last two weeks of its life having its wicked way with as many females as it possibly can.

And if you’re thinking ‘what a way to go’ – you might want to think again.

The male Antechinus is left so exhausted by its constant copulation that it loses all its fur, bleeds internally and dies a gangrenous and ulcer-infected wreck.

Its somewhat focussed behaviour has puzzled scientists for years but new research has cast light on the driving force behind its carnal urges.

It seems the Australian animal spends most of its year-long life building up a finite amount of sperm that it is able to release only during that final fortnight of lust.

‘Poor little guys – you have to feel sorry for them,’ said Aussie researcher Dr Diana Fisher. ‘It’s quite difficult to watch them go at it so hard.’

Pairs of the mouse-like creatures can get it on for up to 14 hours at a time during the mating season.

Eventually, the girls back off as the sickly chaps stagger about in confusion, dazedly searching for chances to spread the last of their seed.

While it may seem a peculiar way to go about making babies, Dr Fisher said the annual orgy was a survival strategy.

‘There’s a very good chance most of the females will become pregnant,’ said the Queensland University expert, whose findings appear in US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.