Suicidal Reproduction; A Tiny Male Marsupial Ends Up Dead To Procreate

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Picture By Mel Williams - Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0)

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Reproduction has been an important component of life for every single living being on earth to ensure the continuity of their own species. While some enjoy having a sexual intercourse with their loved one, some are struggling, unable to decide what's their last word is going to be, as sexual reproduction has been killing them for generations (well, other than habitat destruction caused by human's activities). I can give you three examples:

Labord's Chameleon

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Picture By John Mather - Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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This species of chameleon has been sitting in the IUCN Red list for years. Well, the reason for that was not attributed to the fact that they were trying to kill each other while having sexual intercourse and succeed by the way, but for the sake of argument, if they refrain themselves from doing that, they can preserve many populations to sustain the number and make it out from the IUCN red list. Maybe it's all for the best. Well, their species has been deteriorating still because of habitat destruction and fragmentation for human's agricultural benefits. Regardless, after an intense, violent and hot sexual "pillow fight", both of them died, living their eggs behind. They have a pretty short lifespan (less than a year) and most of them were spent, developing inside their own egg.

Octopus

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Picture By Pseudopanax - Wikimedia (CC0)

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I'm not sure if this is a situation where you describe the female octopus as kinda "slutty" but a male octopus would be killed and dragged into the female's den, literally being eaten by his "lover" after their reproductive session. It was hot, it was sexy and suddenly, amidst all of that sexiness, the male octopus is being strangled by the arms of the female octopus. In 2014, a group of scientists witnessed a male octopus being strangled for almost two minutes before it gave up and died. The dead male octopus would then be brought into the den of the female octopus, eating it bit by bit. It was speculated that this sort of cannibalism was necessary to complete the fertilisation process. Well, if a lady trying to eat you after having sex with you, pull your pants and run as fast as you could. Don't even fight!

Praying Mantis

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Picture Source - Pixabay (CC0)

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I think this is the first creature that I know off whereby the female commits cannibalism in the middle of sexual intercourse just to make the male thrust harder. That's hot and scary at the same freaking time. This is proven in a few scientific studies conducted in the past which conclude that the chances of fertilisation are much more pronounced if the male praying mantis would be able to have sex without its head. It's crazy I know but that was the truth. Like all of you, I'm also not sure how to respond to that piece of information. A female praying mantis would dance before the reproductive session while releasing pheromones, attracting the male praying mantis to come and have it a go for the first and last time.

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The Antechinus; this is why size doesn't matter

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Picture Source - Pxhere (CC0)

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There you are, three examples which illustrated what a nightmare being certain animals in the animal kingdom. If the same situation were to apply to humans, I think the guys would scare as shit and the girls would be horny as hell (and probably hungry). In this article, I would like to talk specifically about an animal which has been engaging in a sexual orgy whereby, the male species would have sex straight for 14 hours without food, water, not even some rest which they will end up dead in a week as a result of extreme fatigue, sexual or any other related injuries and multisystem organs failure.

Antechinus can be found mostly in Australia, New Guinea, Tasmania and unlike Labord's chameleons, most (if not all) of the member of their species has been listed in the IUCN red list marked as least concern despite their tendency to die after engaging in sexual intercourses (that's only the male by the way). If you look at it closely, they seem like mice; I mean the ugly version of mice because mice are cute. Most of them have short hairs covering about 80-90% of their body with various tones/intensities of blackish discolouration. They have pointy snouts which a few whiskers and a pair of large ears which make them resemble a shrew.

Currently there are about 15 species of the genus Antechinus and honestly, they all look the same to me. With respect to the nose and the tip of the tail, the longest Antechinus measured around 20 cm and the heaviest Antechinus set its weight at 180g. It's quite small, like a mouse with a shrew feature; maybe a "shrouse". That was a bad joke. Even though some of the articles on the net described this creature as being carnivorous, I would prefer to call it as omnivorous. Sometimes, if they can't find anything that they love, they will grab some fruits and pollen to fill in their growling stomach but their main entree will always be insects (of any kind) and some small vertebrates.

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Picture Source - John Gould (CC0)

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So if they all look the same, how do scientists differentiate which is which? The answer is their fur colour pattern. Some species of Antechinus can even be differentiated through a small orange-like colouring which can be found around its large ear. The tendency for them to kill themselves during sexual intercourse, climate changes and habitats destruction by human activities have made this creature a candidate for future extinction. There is several efforts which have been done to capture and conserve this marsupial, but most of them are unsuccessful.

The inevitable death for the sake of love

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Picture By Patrick Kavanagh - Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

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If you can choose between food and sex, which one would you choose? Well, Antechinuses will only have sex when there is less food around (around winter), which means, they chose foods over sexual intercourse (well, it is debatable and without any scientific evidence but as long as there is no contradictory information, I would stick with that kind of opinion). Like some animals, they were very competitive when it comes to proving their sexual prowess to the female Antechinus.

What would you give to prove that you are determined in ensuring the continuity of your own species? The steps which are taken by male Antechinuses might be extreme, but they will suppress any of the bodily processes and channel all of its metabolism to amplify their sexual dominance over the other male species. This includes digestion, deactivating most of the proteins synthesis in the body and yeah, their immune system which makes them a few hundred times prone to zoonotic infections. They were willing to trade the opportunity of living a long life for the capability of making love, intensely for 14 hours straight. Talk about an extremist!

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Picture Source - Pixabay

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During the mating sessions, a single male Antechinus would produce a substantial amount of testosterone which will allow them to be sexually and physically competitive while making out with a single mate for up to 12 hours. This evolutionary advantage, however, has its price. After a week, all of the male Antechinuses who took part in the sex ritual would die as a result of extreme physical and physiological fatigue as the testosterone level drop abruptly causing their immune system to shut down. They will be extremely prone to infection and tick's bite which would cause them to bleed internally and die.

Throughout the breeding season, the female would not ovulate. They can store as much as sperms as possible in a specialised structure in their ovary until the end of the breeding seasons. Only then, will they ovulate and fertilisation takes place. Unlike humans, a single child (litter) of an Antechinus can be traced back to a few fathers (which are dead apparently). Their genetic constitution is from multiple fathers and a single mother making them one of the most unique creatures in the world in terms of, well, that.

The number of litters that a female Antechinus can hold will depend on the number of teats, available inside her pouch. If they have 4 teats, then they will be having four litters and the highest number of litters that have been observed was 14. There are various factors which could affect the number of tests developed on a female Antechinus although it is not certain whether or not it is true:

• Natural selection
• Environment
• Availability of foods and water

Whatever it is, I think we can agree that this animal, is really, a ferocious sexual devil.

References and further reading materials

• Antechinus - Wikipedia. Retrieved on May 21st, 2018
• The Male Antechinus Dies After Non-Stop 14-Hour Sex Sessions. Retrieved on May 21st, 2018
• Life Is Short.... Retrieved on May 21st, 2018
• Female Octopus Strangles Mate, Then Eats Him. Retrieved on May 21st, 2018
• New to nature No 139: Antechinus arktos. Retrieved on May 21st, 2018
• If These Tiny Marsupials' Marathon Mating Sessions Don't Kill Them, Humans Will. Retrieved on May 21st, 2018

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