Nature is never a good place to look for moral guidance. Anything goes, as long as it increases the chances of one’s genes being passed down the generations.<\/p>\n
Take the male Amazonian frog\u00a0Rhinella proboscidea<\/em>\u00a0– it doesn’t even care whether its mates are alive or dead.<\/p>\n Like many amphibians, the species is an explosive breeder. Males gather in huge numbers at spawning sites during the brief, desperate mating season, battling among themselves for access to females.<\/p>\n Some females inevitably perish in the scrum, yet they are still fair game: by mounting a dead partner and then massaging her abdomen with his legs, a male can squeeze out her cargo of\u00a0eggs\u00a0and fertilise them in the usual way.<\/p>\n It’s the only known example of necrophilia having an evolutionary advantage – to both the male and the unfortunate female, who would otherwise have missed out on breeding entirely<\/p>\n