Antechinuses: The sex-obsessed Australian rodent that chooses sex over sleep, and pays with his life.
These little guys get super focused on romance during their three-week-long mating season, almost like they’re in a love frenzy. The catch? After all the romance, they don’t get to enjoy a long and peaceful sleep—they actually skip a good three hours of it on average. Some of them go all out and sacrifice up to seven hours of sleep!
Now, here’s the fun part: the scientists, led by Dr. John Lesku from La Trobe University, used fancy gadgets like accelerometers to track the marsupials’ moves and measured a substance called oxalic acid (related to sleep loss). Guess what they found? More romance, more activity, less oxalic acid, and voila—less sleep!
But wait, there’s more! The male antechinuses with the highest testosterone levels, the hormone responsible for all the romance vibes, were the ones catching the least amount of Zs. However, we’re not sure if these sleepyhead lovers were the most successful at becoming daddies.
Some believe the lack of sleep contributes to the marsupials’ early demise. Dr. Lesku isn’t entirely buying it, though. He says losing three hours of sleep isn’t a big deal for any creature they know of. According to him, these male antechinuses are like little programmed romantics destined to end their story after just one year. Love, romance, less sleep—what a wild ride in the animal kingdom!
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