Marsupials are anything but a boring group of mammals. Kangaroos have some of the most powerful kicks in the animal kingdom, wombats are known for their poop cubes, koalas have a toxic diet, and the mouse-sized antechinus has its busy sex life. These small Australian marsupials will sacrifice multiple hours of sleep every night during their fast and furious mating season to make more time for reproduction. These new findings are described in a study published January 25 in the journal Current Biology and shows the first known direct evidence of this kind of sleep deprivation in a land-dwelling mammal.
[Related: These animals spend their whole lives waiting to have sex, and then they die.]
Strange breeding system for a mammal
Antechinuses are small carnivorous marsupials that live in wooded areas of northern and eastern Australia. There are currently 15 recognized species of antechinus, including the brown antechinus, swamp antechinus, and fawn antechinus. They are primarily nocturnal and eat insects, spiders, and even some small reptiles and frogs.
Their unique breeding system is more reminiscent of the short-lived bugs that they feast on than other mammals. While females can live for two years, male antechinuses only live for a year. They can only reproduce once in that short lifetime and the males will typically all die at about the same time following their short and intense mating season.
“The males have one shot at fathering offspring during a single three-week mating period,” study co-author John Lesku, a zoologist who specializes in sleep at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, said in a statement. “We found that male, but not female, dusky antechinuses, become restless during their only breeding season.”
The sleep vs. sex trade-off
Males will trade off between sleep and reproduction that is likely driven by strong sexual selection. For animals–including humans–not catching enough Z’s can…
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