ExtinctZoo - The Worst Animals To Be Born A Dude

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

You know that term, Saturdays are for the boys? Well in nature, for some animals, it turns out that no day is for the boys, just 100% suckiness.

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Indeed sponsored jobs. Imagine being born and the universe immediately decides that your entire existence is going to be a living nightmare. Not because you did anything wrong, mind you, but simply because you happen to be born in dude. And no, I'm not being facetious here. I'm simply referring to our world. And more specifically, the world of sexual selection. Where being male sometimes means you're playing life on a increased difficulty, let's say. And the prize at the end of the tunnel is death. So, fun times. Now you might be thinking, okay, but males are supposed to be the tough ones, right? And as such, they get all the cool weapons, i.e. bigger muscles, more testosterone, etc., etc. And yeah, but that's exactly the problem. Because it turns out that male hormones,

while great for growing muscles and winning fights, are also fantastic at absolutely destroying your body, suppressing your immune system, and making you do incredibly stupid things all in the name of reproduct. Look, Maxers, take note. And we can see this all pretty readily, as on average females in the animal kingdom, including in humans, tend to outlive their male counterparts by a pretty significant margin, with a 20-20 study showing that on average,

mammalian females live about 20% longer than the males. And this isn't some random fluke or bad luck, it's the direct result of, again, our good friend, sexual selection. The concept Darwin came up with over a century ago to explain why male peacocks have those ridiculously impractical tail feathers and why male deer grow antlers that,

well, kill them sometimes. There's even this thing called Batman's principle, or I mean Bateman's principle, which essentially states that males can increase their reproductive success by mating with as many females as possible, while the opposite is less true with females, investing more heavily in mate selection quality, which just goes to say, males are then incentivized to be horny risk-taking idiots, while females are advantaged by being choosy and careful. And for some of us, that's where it ends. We're a bit more stupid and die slightly younger.

But in some animals, they don't just get the short end of the stick. They basically get no stick. In other words, we're talking about animals where being a male means you'll basically 100% die immediately after mating, or where you'll be eaten alive by your partner, or where you'll dissolve into a parasitic testicle attached to a female's body, etc., etc. And while I wish I was making this up, I am unfortunately completely serious, which I guess only further proves that Mother Nature is basically Stephen King on steroids. And I think a great example of this is a tiny, adorable-looking marsupial from Australia, called the Antichinus, something which you might be familiar with if you see my past video on them.

Now, when I say tiny, I mean, this thing is about the size of mouse, weighing some more between 16 to 170 grams, or about 0.5 to 6 ounces depending on the species, so basically lighter than your phone in many cases. It's got big eyes, a pointing snout, and looks like something you'd want to keep as a pet. But that's where you'd be making a fatal mistake. Well, not fatal, but perhaps mistake. Because, as these little guys are actually expert, obligate carnivores, that spend most of their time hunting through the Australian forests, consuming up to 60% of their body weight daily just to survive.

albeit hunting insects and small vertebrates, but still. Now, for most of the year, life is pretty chill for a male antichines, besides the whole having to eat half of your body weight per day to survive. But the females do that too. Regardless, he's out there living his best life, catching bugs, avoiding predators, and doing normal mouse-sized marsupial things. But then, as winter transitions to spring in the southern hemisphere, something crazy happens.

His testosterone levels increase. And when I say increase, I mean, we're talking about Ronnie Coleman here. They go completely off the charts, spiking to eight times the normal level. At the same time as cortisol, one of the main stress hormones, skyrockets to levels that would literally kill most animals, which is to say, not good, which thus begs the question of why then? Well, normally in mammals, there's this protein called corticosteroid binding globulin, or CBG, which basically acts like a sponge that soaks up excess cortisol

and keeps it from running wild near bloodstream. But to male antichinuses during breeding season, their CBG levels crash like the stock market in 2008. which means that all the cortisol is now free-floating and wreaking absolute havoc on their body, with cortisol levels rising from 100 animals per liter to over a thousand, a tenfold increase that would push a human to metabolic crisis. But it gets worse. Oh, so much worse. Driven by this insane cocktail of hormones,

male antichinuses abandon their territories and start roaming and just looking for their princess charming, or rather princess charming's. And when they do find a female, they don't just mates and move on. Oh no, they mate from 5 to 14 hours, continuously. Unbroken marathons that would threaten the sanity of even the most hardened gooners and goonesses. And he doesn't just do this once. Nope, feel mate with as many females as he can possibly find. And why? Well, besides the hormones, also perhaps because his entire legacy needs to be secured in this one breeding season. And why one season, you ask? Because over 99% of the

males will die right after the mating season ends, which only lasts three weeks, mind you. So that's some pretty apocalyptic stuff right there. But don't do worry, as that's not even the truly horrifying part. Rather, it's not the fact that they do die, but it's what they die from. And it's not exhaustion, although that's strong doesn't help, it's rather that their bodies literally start eating themselves from the inside out, consuming muscle tissue, organ mass, even bone density, all to power their reproductive marathon. And the massive cortisol levels completely destroy their immune system. Their fur starts falling out in patches. They develop gangrene and gangrene disinfected wounds. Their eyes may cloud over and sometimes even go blind. And yet, through all of this,

they keep mating, staggering around the forest like zombies, desperately trying to find just one more female. Just one more. Now on the flip side, the females, they're perfectly fine. Well, besides any trauma from having to go through that whole ordeal. But they survived the breeding season, give birth to their young 25 to 35 days later, and raise them through a very energetically demanding lactation period, and then do it all again the next year, but all their baby daddies, dead as dead can be. And yet, with all this said, the most surprising part about this is that this, Stratt actually works. Natural selection has favored the suicidal mating behavior because Australia basically has

a boom-bust ecology, where inside populations explode for just weeks. And thus, by killing off all the adult males immediately after mating, competition for their juniors is now gone, which obviously kind of sucks for the fathers, but hey, at least we'll get the doubt of the year reward, hopefully. But if dying from stress-induced organ failure sounds bad, then wait until you hear about the homies who actively, nay, willingly, get eaten by their own mates. eaten alive, that is. So without further ado, say hello to the Australian redback spider, scientifically known as

Latterodectus Heselti. Okay, so I'm pretty sure some of you might have heard of male spiders being eaten by the female before, and if you haven't, quick lesson in spider behavior. This does actually happen, not all the time, but a few different groups are known to show copulatory cannibalism, as it's called, where the male is then eaten by the female after mating. The big difference, though, is that most of those dudes are trying to make a break for it after doing the dirty, not offering themselves up on a silver platter like our Australian mate here, no pun intended. And speaking of them, let's talk about the size difference here, because we've

got a short king situation on our hands here, or perhaps a giant queen situation. You see, female redback spiders are about 10mm or 0.4 inches long. And while that might not sound that big, wait until you realize that the males measure only 3 to 4 millimeters or about 0.12 to 0.16 inches, meaning females can be over three times longer, and more importantly, tens of times heavier than the males. And to really put this into perspective, that's like if you try to date someone who weighed thousands of pounds or kilograms, and then who would eat to you afterwards. So shout out to all my brave, brave kings. Now, this next part isn't only a female thing, but you might be noticing a similarity between this spider

and another very famous, or should I say infamous spider, the Black Widow. And that is no coincidence as they're part of the same genus, after all, Latrodectus. Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavat Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. What are Black Widows famous for? They're venom. Packing Potenture

toxins with humans who have reported being bitten, having severe pain, sweating, muscle spasms, nausea, and sometimes death, with at least 14 deaths being attributed to these cannibals. So yeah, these are not animals you want to mess with, unless you're a male redback, that is, supposedly. Which speaking of the males, they mature faster than the females, reaching adulthood in about 45 to 90 days compared to the females 75 to 120 days. And once they mature, they have just one goal. Find a female's web, with them foregoing even food in their quest for man.

But here's the problem, besides the whole being eaten part, finding a female is really, really hard. Studies have shown that in the wild, male redback spiders have less than a 20% chance of ever encountering an adult female during their lifetime. So when a male finally does find a female's web, he knows this might be his only shot of ever losing his V card. And so what does he do? He goes ball to the wall, of course, being a simp of the highest order. And what I mean by that is that after mating starts, he does something tremendously and stupendously

idiotic. He somersaults his abdomen directly onto her fangs and mouth area. And no, I'm not making this up. The male positions himself flips upside down in a beautiful controlled somersault and places his oh-so-soft vulnerable abdomen right in front of the female's very non-volnerable mouth parts. And about two-thirds of the time, she starts eating him, just right there, mid-mating. She'll bite into his intelligently placed abdomen and begin to consume him while he continues to go at it. And so now you might be thinking, well, that's it for him, good run for the lad. But here's the thing, Males that get eaten actually copulate for significantly longer than those who don't, with one study finding that cannibalized males copulated for an average of 25 minutes,

while those that escaped only copulating for 11 minutes. But how effective is this, really? And as it so turns out, by letting the female cannibalize him, she will in turn be more likely to reject future suitors, perhaps as a testament of her love, or perhaps because she's not hungry. And supposedly, this strat is pretty effective when it comes to siring offspring, with males who were cannibalized, having much more offspring than males who were not, with one 1996 study actually measuring this, which, by the way, also had a quote in that study

which said, cannibalized males are also less likely to be cuckolded, which, I can honestly say I never in a hundred years thought I'd see that combination of words in a study on spiders. But, uh, moving on from that, there is an animal in the animal kingdom, the tons of guys which they were, in some way, or at least everyone thinks has it good, the lion. I mean, they're called the king of the jungle for a reason. And not a great reason, may I add, seeing that they live in savannahs, not jungles, but whatever. Regardless, they're symbols of strength, courage, majesticness, and in some senses, masculinity. Male lions have these glorious manes, are huge, deadly, roar loud enough to be heard 8 kilometers or 5 miles away,

and they get to laser round while their harem, i.e. the females, do all the hunting. Life's pretty good, right? Wrong. Being a male lion is pretty much terrible. from start to finish, and honestly many of them don't even make it out of childhood. You see, the cup mortality rate is high, with numbers varying between studies, but the picture it paints is grim. Many will perish from disease, starvation, being trampled on by elephants, preyed upon by hyenas, etc., etc. But here's the thing. That's just the regular old, oh, I live in one of the harshest environments on the earth factors. The other factor,

leading to potentially 100% mortality rates in certain situations, is the fact that Cubs also need to watch out for public enemy Numero Uno, which is other lions. And that might sound confusing, so let me explain. A pride of lions is again run by a male lion, or often a coalition of male lions. But this position as Sultan, or Sultan's, is not stable, and a new coalition of males can take over and push out the old resident males. And guess what the first priority of business is after a successful hostile takeover,

killing all the cubs sired by the previous males. And why? Well, fertile lionesses only come into esterous, i.e. heat, after their cubs are a certain age. usually around 18 months after birth. And for a new male on the scene, that is simply unacceptable. So instead of waiting, he just decides to take matters into his own hands, which is to say simply remove the problem. The Cubs, with their death, forcing the lionesses back into heat within a few days to weeks.

V-S again, the months otherwise. And this death by lion is no small number, with one study estimating that infanticide accounts for about 25% of all Cubs deaths. So if you're born in a lion, period, you've basically got a couple coin flips chance of making it first birthday. Not a great start. But let's say you're one of the lucky ones and you survive. Perfect! Now you get to enjoy a childhood with your mother and the other lionesses, along with the resident males, with one of them being your dad, who tolerate you because you're small, theirs, and not a threat. You'll play a fight with your siblings, learn to hunt, and generally have an okay

time. But this lasts until you're about two to three years old, at which point you are now considered adultish. You can drink, vote, but taxes are often still a mystery. Just kidding, well, about the latter part. But once males reach this age, and thus sexual maturity, they are kicked out of the pride, either by their father, or if they're really unlucky, by a group of new males who came along and took over. And either way, I don't mean a polite comment at the dinner table suggesting that it might be time to leave and spread your wings. Rather, I mean, you are driven out of the only home you knew at the equivalent of the end of a shotgun. So, now you're essentially an adult, you've been kicked out of your home, and you're suddenly on your own in one of the most dangerous

places on earth. Actually, let me correct myself there. You're not usually completely alone, as you're typically evicted alongside your brothers and male cousins. And thus, you have now formed something called a coalition. See how this starts? And this is where life becomes a desperate struggle for survival, as nomadic males are basically homeless lions. They don't have the support of a pride's females for hunting, and they're constantly at risk of being attacked by other territorial males.

And studies have shown the nomadic males have significantly higher mortality rates than their counterparts. But let's say again, you beat the odds. You and your coalition are brothers and cousins, and sometimes unrelated males, managed to survive the nomadic period. And during this time you've been growing, building strength, and learning how to throw down. And to that I say, congrats. You're not ready to challenge a resident male or males for control of a pride. And this is where things get very, very violent.

You see, a coalition of males will locate a pride, assess the resident males, and then if they think they can win, which is usually a number thing, they'll attack. And these are not to your school yard scraps. Fights between male lions do and can result in serious, serious injuries. from miming all the way up to death. Oh, and it's also not very fair, where a few males have ganged up on a single one, biting him on the back, neck, legs,

and unfortunately, often in the genitalia as well. And if the challengers win, you can then take over the pride, and now you're living good, perfect. But here's the thing, even if you do successfully take over a pride, you will only hold it for an average of two to three years before you're then overthrown by younger, stronger coalition.

And the odds are not good for getting control after that, if you're not dead, that is. So welcome back to being a nomad, except this time often injured with dead brothers and cousins. So again, let's do the math. If you're born a lion, you have a significant chance of dying in your first year, with a one in four chance that said death will come from another lion. If you survive that, you'll be evicted around two to three years old. Spend some possible years as a nomad with a significantly increased mortality rate, and then if you do survive that and successfully take over a pride, you'll then perhaps hold on to that for another two to three years before being overthrown.

And during those two to three years, which you are king, you're constantly patrolling your territory, which can be, by the way, up to hundreds of square kilometers, fighting off challengers and dealing with the stress for maintaining dominance. But yes, you get laid. Congrats. And with that congrats, we've also reached the end of this curated journey through manhood. So, congrats on that too. But let me just say something. This is barely scratching the surface. As like I alluded to, there are other dudes who become parasitizing testicles, dudes who get eggs injecting to their body, dues to give birth to hundreds of children, and many, many more. But that, my friends, is a story for another time.

Thanks for watching, and until next time.