Quoll male die-off doesn’t fit pattern

A study of the short but enthusiastic lives of the male quoll–a ferretlike marsupial–may demand new theories of male die-offs after mating, say Australian biologists.

Many plants put all their reproductive effort into one big season. That strategy, called semelparity, has been found in only a few terrestrial vertebrates, all smaller than the quoll, explains Meri Oakwood, now at the University of New England in Armidale, Australia.