It's 2024, and many men still think their masculinity is measured by the amount of sex they have.
So let us tell you, with a little help from Claude, about an animal that sacrifices everything for sex - literally.
Antechinus is an Australian marsupial that looks like a less disgusting version of a mouse, and is known as an "ant hedgehog".
Unlike mice, it is a predator, and feeds on animals smaller than itself.
But his most striking characteristic is the way he takes the breeding season very seriously.
New research reveals that during the antechinus' breeding season, the males sacrifice half of their sleep to give themselves more time to mate with the females.
The females, for their part, do not give up sleep to a similar extent, but the scientists measured reduced levels of sleep-related hormones in their bodies, which suggests that they are constantly disturbed by the males and forced to sleep less than usual.
The author of the study, Dr. Erica Zeid from La Trobe University in Melbourne, admits that at the beginning of the study she assumed that the sacrifice of many hours of sleep was the reason why most males die immediately after the breeding season - but when she began to conduct experiments she discovered that the males who sacrificed the most hours of sleep were not the first to die, What's more, other species, such as rats, survive longer sleep loss.
While the exact trigger is unknown, Zeid suspects that the non-stop mating marathon leaves the immune systems and metabolism of the male antechinus too depleted to survive.
Her colleague, Dr. Adrian Bradley of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, adds that their fanatical hyperactivity and malnutrition can also critically damage their stomachs.
What still hints that the pursuit of the sex is what ultimately causes the death of the males is the fact that the females, who as mentioned do not voluntarily give up hours of sleep for the sake of mating, can live another year and give birth several times.
From this, it seems that the sexual desire inherent in us in order to reproduce may cause us to give up another drive - the drive for self-preservation - and literally sacrifice our lives.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us