I just can’t lay off with these weird fuckers. So bringing a climax to this nuttery, here are some critters who really put it all on the line to get busy.
Today’s Moment of Science… dying to fuck.
When it comes to babymaking, species either have a semelparous or an iteroparous reproductive strategy. It’s either one shot at baby-making before imminent death or many sexy times, respectively. Some organisms engage in seasonal iteroparity, which is a fancy pants term for ‘getting it on during mating season.’ Humans practice continuous iteroparity. Or at least we goddamn try to.
Semelparous species tend to produce more offspring in their one big bang than similar iteroparous species in each individual litter. However, iteroparous species have both parents around to raise their young and can reproduce multiple times, leveling out any advantage for which strategy pops out the most floofs.
Some types of insects, octopuses, and even itsy adorable marsupials practice semelparous reproduction. So what triggers the ‘fuck and die’ dance of love across so many unrelated species? It’s not that all these critters evolved from one common ancestor that had the same super weird kink (huge if true though). For these species, pushing out a new bundle of tentacles can be a particularly stressful or resource draining event to the point where it goddamn kills them every time.
This pans out a bit differently species to species. And if ‘animals deciding it’s a good day to die’ isn’t your bag today, maybe skip to the closing line.
Most octopus species are semelparous, and the final days of their lives are hard to watch. Once a soon-to-be octomom lays her eggs, something akin to a self-destruct sequence goes off between the optic gland and the neuroendocrine system. She’ll protect her eggs and grab a snack if it floats by at first, but after a few days stops eating entirely. Then shit gets weird; she’ll start self-mutilating, tearing her own skin off and eating the tips of her tentacles all while never leaving the eggs. By the time her brood starts to hatch, she will have starved to death. Males also typically die within a few months of breeding, if the female doesn’t eat them during the act. Hubba.
Salmon do an awful lot of swimming just to lay some eggs and goddamn die. They can travel up to a thousand miles to lay their eggs in freshwater, and eating during this time comes to a halt. Between the reduced body weight and their cortisol levels spiking causing immune system fuckery, they typically do not survive for a second spawning.
As for the antechinus, a tiny marsupial, well. When I first heard “it fucks until it disintegrates,” I figured that was probably an exaggeration. When it comes time to compete for a mate, their bodies produce a large surge of corticosteroids to be the biggest toughest Chad mouse in the pack. But steroids have a price, even homegrown ones. Their immune systems are left wrecked, and the male roided Australian shrew can suffer from gastric ulcers, hemorrhaging, and liver abscesses. So I’m not convinced it doesn’t fuck until it disintegrates.
But hey, still smashed.
This has been your Moment of Science, not entirely sure how any of this is worse than Tinder.
To get the MOS delivered to your inbox five days a week with even more tales of adorable animal fuckery, head to patreon.com/scibabe.
Join the discussion!