The adorable pink-nosed, white-spotted marsupial that lives in the upper half of Australia would rather die than miss out on sex.
During their brief mating window, males run to death—then die of exhaustion learn led by the University of the Sunshine Coast proposes.
The study compared the activity of male and female quolls (Dasyurus hallucatus) during the mating season Groote Eylandt an island off the coast of the Northern Territory.
The male quolls spent only 8 percent of their time resting, compared to 24 percent of the females, and 13 percent of their time walking, compared to 9 percent of the females.
One male quoll in the study, “Moimoi,” traveled 10.4 kilometers (6.5 miles) in one night in search of a mate – an epic journey for the cat-sized carnivore.
The lack of sleep and energy during this “mating frenzy” could explain why male quolls typically only live for one breeding season, while females live four years.
Sleep deprivation could make male quolls more vulnerable to predation, death from infection, and less able to avoid collisions with cars. called University of Sunshine Coast ecologist Joshua Gaschk led the study.
Gaschk nicknamed the athletic quoll “Moimoi” after a legendary Australian rugby player who was born in Tonga. The last time Gaschk held Moimoi captive, he was in very bad shape and couldn’t see properly. Most males live only a few weeks after mating.
During the study, 13 wild northern quolls were trapped and fitted with a backpack containing a tiny accelerometer, and their movements were monitored over 42 days.
Before being released into the wild, the quolls were observed in a laboratory for a few minutes to classify their movements into categories such as resting, hopping, galloping and walking.
This data was linked to the accelerometer outputs and used to train a machine learning Algorithm. This made it easier to interpret the accelerometer readings once the quolls leapt out of their calico sacks and scurried out of sight.
Several species of marsupials engage in “suicidal reproduction,” where they use all of their resources to optimize a breeding season and then die.
This behavior – called equality – can also be seen in Salmon that swim upstream to reproduce once, and mayflies that only live one day. In these examples, however, both males and females are short-lived.
Reproduction is costly, so a single breeding season can be one evolutionary adaptation created to allow individuals to resort to breeding more, rather than storing it for future use.
Normally, species that breed only once have many offspring from one mating season. Quolls normally produce 5-8 offspring per litter.
Another theory supporting “suicidal reproduction” is that killing the males leaves more resources for the new generation, Gaschk said science alert.
“[In quolls] I would suggest it’s more of an uncontrollable urge,” he said.
“Like a significant drive induced by the synchronization of the estrus cycle in the female population.”
“And so the males get the idea that this is the time of reproduction and they need to persevere as long and as hard as possible because they want to maximize their genetic information, which is passed on to the next generation,” Gaschk said.
The study was published in Open Science of the Royal Society.
