New Species of Sex-Crazed Marsupial Engages in a Mating Frenzy Until It Dies

Researchers may have uncovered two new species of sexually suicidal carnivorous marsupials. They've found rodent-like creatures that engage in a frenzy of sex that eventually kills them.

The marsupials are known as antechinus. This genus breeds so ferociously that eventually its immune system collapses and it dies. In fact, each year the males have a mass die off after one to three weeks of mating.

"So the males will basically just grab the females with no courtship or anything and basically just mate like crazy with every female they can get for up to 14 hours at a time," said Andrew Baker, Queensland University of Technology mammalogist, in an interview with The Brisbane Times. "Then they'll get gastric ulcers, internal bleeding, their fur will fall out in patches, basically any disease that they get or any parasites they've got they've got no ability to fight with their immune system, it completely shuts off."

With that said, these suicidal sex acts make the antechinus species more vulnerable to population extinctions. Already, one of the species has retreated to mountain summits. This means that as temperatures rise, they have nowhere else to run. Protections may have to be put in place to protect this species in the future

The findings are published in the Memoirs of the Queensland Museum - Nature.

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