Researchers found that marsupials participate in routine reproductive suicide.
The team found that some marsupials have escalated hormone levels during breeding season, which can cause the animals to experience immune system failure, hemorrhaging, and death after mating, a University of Queensland press release reported.
"These species experience extreme sexual [behavior], sexual conflict, female and male promiscuity, dramatic death, and synchronized suicide in males," Doctor Diana Fisher said.
The high levels of hormones are triggered by intense love-making sessions. The marsupials mate for 12 to 15 hours with multiple females, AFP reported. During this time the animals' muscles tissue breaks down.
"They just kill themselves mating in this extreme way," Fisher said.
The extreme sacrifice could be for the benefit of the species, the press release reported.
"Popular audiences and even some scientists have often attributed male death before offspring are born to paternal suicide to avoid food depletion," Fisher said.
"Males compete by sperm competition. Males with larger testes and better endurance succeed. Females benefit by promoting this extreme sperm competition, because the highest-quality males father their young," she said.
The researchers, which included members from the University of Tasmania and the University of Sydney, compared the mating habits of 52 species of marsupial across a number of countries. They found that not all of them "self-destructed" after mating.
"We demonstrate that short mating seasons intensified reproductive competition between males, increasing male energy investment in copulations and reducing male post-mating survival," the researchers wrote in their paper on the subject.
Fisher found it unfortunate that some of the adorable marsupials died such a dramatic death.
"They have a nice [temperament]; they are very inquisitive little animals. They are quite interactive. It's a bit sad. But they don't know it's coming I suppose, it's just something that happens to them," she said.
