--- title: Australia: This Newly Discovered Mammal Mates Itself to Death description: After three weeks of speed-mating the male antechinus, a marsupial, dies to leave enough food for the females and their offspring canonical: https://time.com/3904647/antechinus-mating-death/ author: Tara John article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-02T11:45:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T07:49:00.404Z article:section: Science og:title: Australia: This Newly Discovered Mammal Mates Itself to Death og:description: After three weeks of speed-mating the male antechinus, a marsupial, dies to leave enough food for the females and their offspring og:url: https://time.com/3904647/antechinus-mating-death/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Australia: This Newly Discovered Mammal Mates Itself to Death twitter:description: After three weeks of speed-mating the male antechinus, a marsupial, dies to leave enough food for the females and their offspring twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Newly Discovered Australian Mammal Mates Itself to Death by [Tara John](https://time.com/author/tara-john/) ## Tara John Jun 2, 2015 11:45 AM UTC by [Tara John](https://time.com/author/tara-john/) ## Tara John Jun 2, 2015 11:45 AM UTC Scientists from the [Queensland University of Technology](https://www.qut.edu.au/news/news?news-id=90278) have discovered a new species of marsupial from Australia, which quite literally mates itself to death. In the mating season, the Tasman Peninsula Dusky Antechinus, a carnivorous marsupial, goes on a testosterone-fueled mating and fighting rampage for two to three weeks, with a single coupling sometimes lasting 14-hours. This video shows an antechinus similar to the Tasman Peninsula Dusky Antechinus: “Ultimately, the testosterone triggers a malfunction in the stress hormone shut-off switch; the resulting rise in stress hormones causes the males’ immune systems to collapse and they all drop dead before the females give birth to a single baby,” [said the lead researcher, Andrew Baker](https://www.qut.edu.au/news/news?news-id=90278). There is some logic to this evolutionary strategy; the yearly ‘suicide mission’ halves the population of the species and allows the females to have enough food to raise the next generation. The Tasman Antechinus is now threatened by climate change and logging as well as its tendency to halve its population every year. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3904647/antechinus-mating-death/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3904647/antechinus-mating-death/"},"headline":"This Newly Discovered Australian Mammal Mates Itself to Death","datePublished":"2015-06-02T11:45:39.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T07:49:00.404Z","description":"After three weeks of speed-mating the male antechinus dies to leave enough food for the females and their offspring.","url":"https://time.com/3904647/antechinus-mating-death/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tara John","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tara-john/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3904647/antechinus-mating-death/","name":"This Newly Discovered Australian Mammal Mates Itself to Death"}}]}] ```