Australian marsupial has sex for 14 hours – 01/30/2024 – Science

Sleep is essential for animals. Lack of rest can cause serious health problems, mental confusion and even death — it’s no wonder that sleep deprivation is used as a method of torture. But it seems that an animal from Oceania sacrifices sleep in exchange for sex. This is what scientists discovered when observing males of the genus antechinus, a marsupial from the coastal forests of Australia, who during the mating period “become addicted to sex” and leave sleep aside to dedicate themselves to the act.

The article, recently published in the scientific journal Current Biology, reports the surprising biological discovery, which is probably related to natural selection and is the first to document this type of sleep restriction in a land mammal.

“Using a combination of techniques, we showed that males lose hours of sleep during mating, and that in one of the stages it is reduced by up to half”, reports Erika Zaid, from La Trobe University, in Melbourne, Australia.

“In humans and other animals, restricting the normal amount of sleep leads to lower performance when awake and the effect worsens night after night, but antechinus do just that: they sleep three hours less per night, every night , for three weeks”, highlights the researcher.

Is sleeping less beneficial?

In the pioneering study, researchers used accelerometry to track the movements of around 450 marsupials of the genus, as well as electrophysiological and metabolic measurements to quantify how much the animals slept.

The authors suggest that these animals may obtain some kind of advantage by sleeping less during the mating period or that they accept the inconvenience of staying awake to increase the chances of reproduction. According to experts, reducing sleep can be a form of adaptation when the need for reproduction “is extreme”.

“It’s actually surprising that they don’t sacrifice even more sleep during the breeding season, since they’re going to die soon anyway,” comments Zaid.

Tragic death and cannibalism

Antechinus are also rare in other respects. Males only reproduce once during their brief lifespan of less than a year. Females can live for two years and have more opportunities to reproduce.

The research team also discovered that, during mating season, males compete for the greatest number of females to maximize their reproductive success, which is why they have up to 14 hours of sex with different pairs.

“Males only get one chance during a single three-week mating period,” explains study leader and La Trobe University researcher John Lesku.

However, all this effort has consequences: after the mating period, the monitored males developed skin lesions, hair loss and decreased performance when awake. Some die shortly after the single, short and intense mating season. But his death also has another function: the cubs and females use the male’s remains as a source of food.

More resistant to sleep than humans?

The study does not clarify what causes some males to die after the breeding season, although researchers do not believe it is due solely to loss of sleep. Out of ten males, only two later died shortly after mating, and they were not the ones who slept the least.

Scientists also want to know more about how antechinus deal with sleep loss, which reaches a level that would cause humans to act as if they were intoxicated or drugged.

In future studies, the team hopes to discover whether these animals are more resistant to sleep than humans or whether they “just go on” instinctively.