Claim A says Female antechinuses die after mating season. Claim B says Male antechinuses mate until their bodies break down. Claim B is true, and Claim A is completely made up.
The antechinus is a small Australian marsupial that looks like a mouse. Its breeding season is a brief, frantic burst that lasts only a couple of weeks, and the males go all in.
Some pairs mate for up to 14 hours at a time. Before the season even starts, the males shut down their sperm production, so they have to make every encounter count against rival males.
The cost is huge. Stress hormones surge, and the males' immune systems collapse. That brings internal bleeding and infections, and every male dies, usually before his young are even born.
Biologists once assumed the males fought each other so hard that the fighting killed them. We now know that isn't what happens. It is the mating marathon itself that wears them out.
Females are not the ones who die after the season. They survive it and raise the young on their own.
Did you guess right, or did the doomed-females idea fool you? Send this to a friend and see whether they can pick the true one.
