Why A Little Mammal Has So Much Sex That It Disintegrates

National Geographic ^ | 10/8/13 | Ed Yong

[Slings and Arrows]

It’s August in Australia, and a small, mouse-like creature called an antechinus is busy killing himself through sex. He was a virgin until now, but for two to three weeks, this little lothario goes at it non-stop. He mates with as many females as he can, in violent, frenetic encounters that can each last up to 14 hours. He does little else.

A month ago, he irreversibly stopped making sperm, so he’s got all that he will ever have. This burst of speed-mating is his one chance to pass his genes on to the next generation, and he will die trying. He exhausts himself so thoroughly that his body starts to fall apart. His blood courses with testosterone and stress hormones. His fur falls off. He bleeds internally. His immune system fails to fight off incoming infections, and he becomes riddled with gangrene.

He’s a complete mess, but he’s still after sex. “By the end of the mating season, physically disintegrating males may run around frantically searching for last mating opportunities,” says Diana Fisher from the University of Queensland. “By that time, females are, not surprisingly, avoiding them.”

Soon, it’s all over. A few weeks shy of his first birthday, he is dead, along with every other male antechinus in the area.

[Slings and Arrows]

When I was a teenage boy, that's how I would've wanted to go.

[Slings and Arrows]

Ladies and Gentlemen, the mascot for Planned Parenthood.

[Vince Ferrer]

The Anthony Weiner of the natural world.

[Slings and Arrows]

At least Carlos Danger only disintegrated politically.

[vbmoneyspender]

Mother Nature is a bitch.

[Slings and Arrows]

The male praying mantis agrees.

[Olog-hai]

Looks like a species of possum (i.e. versus opossum, which refers to the species in the Americas; the two words were once one).

[Olog-hai]

The male antechinus is still luckier than male mantids and male spiders . . . at least his first girlfriend doesn’t kill and eat him.

[melsec]

Sounds like schoolies (end of school year summer break week) in Surfers Paradise!

[woofie]

at least they aren’t gay

[trubolotta]

The Anthony Weiner of the natural world.

I don't think so. Weiner sits for still photographs; all show and no go.

[Slings and Arrows]

Maybe not, but their life sure sounds like that of some gay men.

[Slings and Arrows]

They do it until they get gangrene?

[Slings and Arrows]

That’s because antechinus’s don’t have family courts.

[ApplegateRanch]

SSSEEEEXXXXXX!

[kingu]

I wonder if evolutionists will jump all over the fact that they’ve found the missing link; the ancestor to the Muslim world, a population of men who will rape any female until eventually they fall apart and die.

[melsec]

No but they might need a few shots by the time they get home!

[Slings and Arrows]

It ain’t a Spring Break until the Infectious Disease doc says “You’ve got WHAT?!”

[ConservativeTeen]

Death by Snu-Snu!

[Slings and Arrows]

I thought Mohammedans preferred little boys and goats. (Not necessarily in that order.)