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Name : Antechinus(Antechinus )
Where it lives : Australia
What it eats : Insects , wanderer , centipedes and sometimes frogs and modest reptiles
Why it ’s awesome : Antechinuses are little pouched mammal about the size of gerbille with a flakey reproductive system : the male have sexual urge until they break from organ loser .
There are 15 mintage ofAntechinusall with the same deadly conjugation organisation . Their breeding season is a frenetic period lasting just two to three weeks . During this time , males give up sleepto have as much sex as potential , move for up to 14 hours at a meter in the hope of passing on their genes . Once the breeding time of year terminate , all the Male drop stagnant .
Males die as a result of emphasis and debilitation . During the mating windowpane , testosterone and the focus hormone cortisol surge in their bodies . The growth in testosterone prevents them from processing the cortisol , have organ failure and death .
Some virile antechinuses survive , but this is very rare . " Males arrest making sperm before the coupling season and their ballock disintegrate , so they are not even using energy on that during the coupling period,“Diana Fisher , a mammal ecologist at the University of Queensland in Australia , said ina command in 2013 . " But they can never regurgitate again even if they do survive . "
During the mating season , sperm is put in in the epididymisand is perpetually lost in piss , so they have a very brief windowpane to couple before sterility and death .
The antechinus mint deathrate case provides an chance — fresh food for the fraught females and any males that manage to survive the sexfest . female take the chance to cannibalize their own males .
Related : These female frogs manipulate their own demise to get out of sex
In arena where different species ofAntechinusoverlap , females may also feast on male from other species . " Each species may gain from eat dead males of the other,“Andrew Baker , an ecologist at the Queensland University of Technology , said in a statementin 2024 .
— Silky anteater : The flyspeck , boxing ball of pelt
— Sun bear : The little carnivores that calculate so like to humans they ’ve been mistaken for multitude outwear costumes
— Qinling cat bear : The shrunken pandas that diverged 300,000 age ago and sometimes come out brown
male from oneAntechinusspecies may feed on those from another if the timing of their breeding seasons allows it . " For the later - breed species , both gender may take the opportunity to cannibalise drained male of the former - breeding species , to help stack on weightiness and experimental condition before their own breeding menses commences , " Baker articulate , adding that in one example , a male person — potentially in the midriff of his own pairing season — was seen feeding on a " dead comrade " had tomentum departure point stress - induce modification . " He was perhaps designate before long to become somebody else ’s meal , " Baker said .
Gestation in female last between 25 and 35 days , after which the undeveloped young move to a pocket on their female parent ’s abdominal cavity to arise for another 50 day . Once the vernal are independent at about three months , the wheel starts again , with antechinuses reaching intimate maturity at around eight months .
