A closer look
Male echidnas form massive, highly structured conga lines called mating trains when pursuing a single female, following her relentlessly through the Australian wilderness for up to six solid weeks in a single file line sorted by size, completely abandoning food and sleep just for a chance to reproduce; if the female finally stops to initiate the process, the males aggressively dig a circular trench around her and literally wrestle each other until only one victor remains in the dirt ring, making it absolutely astounding that these spiky mammals invented an exhausting hybrid of extreme endurance stalking and professional wrestling just to guarantee a date, setting a standard of romantic desperation that puts modern dating apps to shame entirely
