I majored in biology in college and I remember one Professor telling us that we were of no use after we mated and that we should die soon after. Wow he was right! What am I doing here at almost 70??
44
I'd choose death.
9
@Kevin Banker
Didn't know it was a choice.
12
The final tag line is cute, too clever by half, and simply wrong. The males are making their deposits in all available baskets.
77
With all males dying after mating, this would seem to result in a progressive imbalance of more females than males, unless the lifespan of females/males is still similar even with the males' dramatic ritual demise.
19
This article brought a smile to my face, which is a nice change from the usual front page doomsday and chaos stories. Males literally dying to have sex seems like poetic justice in a tongue in cheek sort of way.
This is a great reminder that we truly are animals who are driven by forces of nature. As much as we would like to believe our intellects guide our actions, hormones make us all do crazy things.
On a more somber note, I do believe that uncontrolled testosterone in humans still continues to wreak havoc in the world and would love to see estrogen/progesterone be given the chance to dominate. Is that, perhaps, what we need to save our species and planet?
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@Teresa
I was exactly going to say that, even though I'm male :)
20
@Teresa
Ask our near cousins the Bonobos.
12
The babies in the pouch look a bit like bubblegum jelly bellies.
25
If availability of foods is extremely low from time to time, their strategy can be optimal for survival. Timely death of males will save foods for the pregnant females. And females bearing genes of many males can sustain gene diversity better than those bearing genes of a single male even though many of them are decimated by starvation. Gene diversity is essential for survival in fighting against germs after the fight against hunger is over.
If threats from natural enemies are more critical than the scarcity of foods, males can be evolved to live longer to protect vulnerable females and kids from the enemies.
By the way, It is not accurate to say that those mice's strategy is to put all the eggs in one basket. Actually, they use as many baskets as possible under the conditions where they live.
55
I guess this means the line "just wait until your father gets home" carries little authority.
79
With all the males dead, who will take out the trash?
Nature once again show us how useless men other than to reproduce. With science now able to create sperm from stem cell lines, women may only keep a few men around as pets. In the not to distant future since they wouldn't even need them to make babies.
44
So cute!
I'd like to have one and, if male, how about a neutering to save his life.
To continue the species, how about artificial insemination, then a neutering.
5
@citizen vox
Why? Seems perfect as it is.
11
The poor male kaluta's dilemma sounds like the premise for a 1970s Woody Allen film.
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I bet there are quite a few men would “sacrifice” themselves if they could have this kind of last hurrah!
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@Mon9
Ask me again when I’m 75.
11
@independence always good to know the age when the time’s right for going out in style. Saves a lot of heartache. Mine is 72 god willing.
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@Mon
It never killed me.
8
14 females would be too much for me also.
34
This is making me rethink the meaning of "Beds are Burning" by Midnight Oil. Or the females are promising the males a Vegemite sandwich if impregnated which any self-respecting kaluta would go to great lengths for!
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Great idea. Maybe scientists can use this to improve human behavior or to at least reduce hyper aggression on the part of alpha males as a social problem.
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A ten month life is approximately 7200 hours. Based on a 14 hour sex life, the little creature is spending 0.001944% of his life engaged in sex.
By comparison, if a human lives 80 years, that is a total of approx. 700,800 hours. (I didn’t account for leap years).
Therefore a human would need to accumulate 1362.355 hours of sex – that would be 56.75 continuous, 24 hour days - to have the same percentage.
The little thing has a lot of stamina.
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@Buttons Cornell
That's not so much. The only other thing to do is mathematics, so it is a fair trade-off, though to do 113 continuous 24 hour days at mathematics would be more exhausting.
5
@Buttons Cornell
The kaluta male has 14 days, not just 14 hours, to accomplish his task, still stressful. So they spend about 4.7% of his life trying to have sex (that's a lot compared to at least some humans).
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@JNJ
Especially mathematicians who after their alternate sessions of mathematics are too exhausted to be interested much anyway. Besides, mathematics is more interesting. Distracting while attempting to accomplish what is required in the alternate period.
1
Abstinence makes the heart beat longer.
117
It's all about legacy.
8
We may have more in common with this species than originally thought. For example, if I merely approach my wife for sex, she tells me to drop dead.
205
@Paul Andiamo Well, who among us likes to be #14?
20
Your cleverness is wasted on perpetuating the myth that women don’t want sex.
Maybe she (and all those other women whose spouses/partners complain about lack of sex) just doesn’t want it with you?
23
Naturally, Dr. Dickman rose to the occasion on the subject.
112
I suppose there are worse ways to go, but I'm glad I'm not a kaluta.
16
Sorry, couldn't resist. Could this mating consequence be termed the "Nelson Rockefeller" effect?
27
Northwestern Australia won't be on my bucket list. At least not for sex.
15
Because Australia.
49
So they were hoping their brains would fall out, and instead their guts fell out. Silly little mice! But, at least, unlike humans, no lawyer gets involved.
20
Do the males at least have time to smoke a cigarette?
93
Live fast, die young.
39
Semelparity... and the cause of death post-coitus with gut ulcerations may point to exceedingly high-level of stress-hormonal axis active during this time on such a small animal... the things nature does to ensure continuity.
Hah, suicidal sex, indeed.
Has anyone here ever seen videos of Tasmanian devils mating?
Try watching.
The amount of noise, grumbling, vicious snapping and literally ripping one another apart in the process... Oh God, nature does indeed have a very morbid sense of humor.
Thank you for the article.
32
Well, if I mated for 14 straight hours I would question my ability to survive. For God's sake, take a break now and then....
22
@Mike
Surely you jest. I can recall much longer sessions (need multiple partners though, as these fur balls understand) even a couple decades ago when I was in my 50s. Must be something about the younger generation. I would say it would be wise for you to avoid Brazil.
3
@J Chaffee
Hate to break the news to you, but some people get their kicks above the waistline. Even in the younger generation. There are, after all, other ways to live a good life.
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@James R Dupak
The only other thing worth doing is mathematics and it is certainly more interesting, but advanced hedonism does make for a useful break everyone once in a while. I made this point in other comments here.
1
semelparous--no there is a word with which to conjure. But do get your other nomenclature correct: Polyandry is multiple male partners, in marriage. The practice is rare but usually occurs where brothers marry the same woman which consolidates inheritance of property rather than fragmenting it. This strategy works well where land is in short supply, such as high mountain areas, and indeed, that is where it was primarily found. Polygamy is also the correct name for legal arrangements in multiple partner unions, which other animals do not make. Mice don't have marriage ceremonies insofar as we know. If you find one happening though, please to write about it. I'd like to know what the bride wears and where they go on their honeymoon.
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@PeterS In biology/zoology, polyandry is the correct word.
20
@PeterS
It also works well in California and Brazil.
1
@PeterS Perhaps you were short on time, but regarding the mouse marriage ceremony, let's not forget the mouse marriage planner, mouse marriage registry, mouse marriage beautician, mouse marriage stylist, mouse marriage cosmetics consultant, mouse marriage photographer, mouse marriage videographer, mouse marriage florist, mouse marriage social media consultant, mouse marriage... well, you get the idea. It's a miracle many more guys (homo sapiens, that is) don't drop dead before the honeymoon, actually.
25
Pleading ignorance here, but why would they evolve in this direction rather than one less deadly to the males?
5
@nom de guerre
The main goal of all animals is to pass on their genes. Having done this, there is no good reason for them to continue life unless they have a role that helps their offspring to survive better (e.g. teaching them necessary skills.) If these particular males hang around after mating they would not be helping their young but would be competing with them for food in a desert environment where food was scarce.
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@nom de guerre Your question is answered in the article.
6
@nom de guerre
I meant this comment for you, not kc to whom it was going to be addressed. You must be kidding, right?
La petite mort ...
65
@michael kauffman More like le grand mort.
29
@Bill Prange
More like la grande mort. Just because it's big doesn't mean it's not feminine. ;)
14
That's a good death.
4
I hope they die happy.
22
Wow. Doesn't the female preying mantis rip her mate's head off as she climaxes? But this is a sad end to a fun moment. Of course if you've gotta go, that would be my favorite way. In the Renaissance, people believed that each orgasm took a day off one's life. "To die" meant "to have an orgasm," as in Dowland's sweet little song:
Come again!
Sweet love doth now invite
Thy graces that refrain
To do me due delight,
To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, to die,
With thee again in sweetest sympathy.
Which you can find on You-Tube. Nowadays, I think of orgasm as adding a day to my life--but who knows?
http://www.thecriticalmom.blogspot.com
10
Polyandry: does not mean multiple partners. It means multiple male partners. I learned that in Anthropology 1A and a Google search just confirmed my suspicions. Also, for future reference, the practice of multiple female partners is polygyny, not polygamy which is used to indicated the illegal status attached to multiple female partners. Hence, polygamy should not be applied to animals. They don't care or worry about the law.
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@Marmylady
Humans are animals, primates, and some of them worry about the law.
3
By this standard, scientists would need to stop referring to Newton's laws, Boyle's law, Dollo's law, Ohm's law, and countless others, because they were not enacted through legislation.
5
@Nan Tucket
Mathematicians don't pay attention to many of those laws either. For example, Norbert Wiener's measure on the sample path space of continuous functions on an interval, say, is concentrated only on those with no derivatives at any point and the sample paths over which one integrates have the property of getting back to the origin in finite time no matter how far away they may be. Hence they almost always break the speed limit set by Einstein's relativity: they have to go faster then the speed of light almost all the time (while being so irregular they have corners everywhere and are not of bounded variation in any interval). Ironically, the original construction of this idea was due to Einstein in a famous paper from 1905, which Norbert (a real nerd) Wiener made mathematically rigorous, also creating the first measure on an infinite dimensional space.
3