antechinus
Aug. 27th, 2018 08:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordantechinus (ant-uh-KEE-nuhs) - n., any of several small carnivorous marsupials (genus Antechinus) that resemble shrews.
About 15 species in Australia and New Guinea. Noted for males being semelparous: mating once in their lifetimes, or in this case, going into a mating frenzy during breeding season till they exhaust themselves and die. The name was coined in 1841 from Greek roots anti- in the sense of simulating + ekhinos, hedgehog/sea urchin (from its bristly fur). A brown antechinus (Antechinus stuartii):
Thanks, WikiMedia!
---L.
About 15 species in Australia and New Guinea. Noted for males being semelparous: mating once in their lifetimes, or in this case, going into a mating frenzy during breeding season till they exhaust themselves and die. The name was coined in 1841 from Greek roots anti- in the sense of simulating + ekhinos, hedgehog/sea urchin (from its bristly fur). A brown antechinus (Antechinus stuartii):
Thanks, WikiMedia!
---L.
