A small endangered marsupial is walking so far and sleeping so little in its desperate search for a female mate that it may be causing its own early death, according to a study.
A northern quoll in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. A new study suggests male quolls are walking so far in search of a mate it is killing them.A small endangered marsupial is dying for sex — literally.
The researchers fitted tiny backpacks with trackers onto both male and female quolls on Groote Eylandt, a large island off the coast of Australia’s Northern Territories, and found striking differences in male and female behavior. Joshua Gaschk, who led the study, said in a statement: “Sleep deprivation, and associated symptoms for a prolonged duration would make recuperation impossible and could explain the causes of death recorded in the males after breeding season.The health risks of sleep deprivation in rodents is well documented, and the quolls the researchers studied were found to lose weight, become aggressive and display reckless behavior.
A northern quoll at Alyangula, in Australia's Northern Territory. Male quolls suffer from sleep deprivation leading to reckless behavior.Jack Ashby, assistant director of the University Museum of Zoology in Cambridge, England, and an expert on Australian mammals who was not involved in the quoll study, explained that all animals incur a cost on their own body and long-term survival to produce their young. Normally these costs are weighted equally throughout the parents' lives.
During Ashby's own fieldwork in the monsoonal forests of northern Australia, he said he found male northern quolls toward the end of their short breeding window."They are balding, covered in scabs, sores, ticks and other parasites — it’s clear that their bodies are shutting down," he said.
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