12/27/2025
The brown antechinus lives fast and dies young. Males of this small marsupial mouse, which live in the woodlands of eastern Australia, become s*xually mature at around ten months old. After that, they have one thing on their mind.
Males engage in a two-week-long s*x marathon with as many females as they can find. Each frenzied encounter can last up to 14 hours. As soon as he’s done with one female, he moves on to another, leaving himself no time to eat, sleep or recharge his batteries.
As his levels of stress hormones rocket, his immune system plummets. The male exhausts himself so thoroughly that his body falls apart. His fur goes patchy, he develops gastric ulcers and he becomes unable to fight off infections. Then he dies. Male brown antechinuses never make it past their first birthday. They s**g themselves to death and die at the end of their first and only breeding season.