These Animals Die After Spending Their Whole Lives Waiting To Have Sex

For some animals, the mating dance can be deadly. Like the antechinus, a furry mouse-like marsupial who were in the news because of their marathon sex sessions that are so taxing they die from exhaustion. And they say you never forget the first time.

Popular Science has compiled a list of animals that spend their lives on the hunt for sex and then die after reproduction. Among them, the pacific salmon, which will stop eating and expend all of their energy to fight their way up-stream to fertilize their mate’s eggs. Once they’ve reached their destination and the female salmon has died, the male will spend his short life defending the eggs. Salmon do not eat in freshwater, so once they’ve used the fat stores in their body they starve to death.

The male drone bee is another example of living a sex-only life. Unlike their female counterparts, the male drone bee will sit around doing pretty much nothing (occasionally fanning an overheated hive if need be) until it’s time to have sex with the queen- then he drops dead.

Deep-sea octopuses might take the award for saddest sex life– they starve to death, sometimes years after they’ve reproduced once. The female Graneledone boreopacifica, will mate and then stay put, keeping an eye open for any predatory behavior. According to Popular Science, one research team monitored the octopus guarding her eggs for over 50 months. During that four year period of time she never ate a thing and then she died.