Adaptive here means whether necrophilia occurs in order to still produce offspring, i.e. it’s ‘conscious’ (I use that term veeeery loosely here) or if it occurs just because the animals don’t recognize that the partner is dead.
I remember a paper about a frog species (not sure if it was the one from the meme) where the males participated in necrophilia, but they basically tried to squeeze eggs out of anything they grabbed. Living female, dead female, stone, sponge. All the same.

Damn, I’m getting flasbacks from that. I had to make a presentation whether functional necrophilia in animals is adaptive during my master studies. I had to read so many papers discussing the details. Conclusion: not enough evidence to conclude it’s adaptive.

Edit fun fact: in the 1920s there was an Antarctic expedition funded by the British Royal Society. The scientists described necrophilia in emperor penguins (I think), but the Society refused to publish the research to not sully the image of the animals. The paper was finally published some time after 2000.

Trigger warnings.
I used to think they are for overly sensitive people, then life happened and now I have my own triggers and would like a trigger warning for certain topics.