Female dragonflies who do not
wish to mate will play dead, falling from the sky and resting on the ground stationary
until the annoying male leaves them alone, a study from the University of
Zurich found, Newsweek stated.
The conduct was witnessed in
the Swiss Alps, where male dragonflies are more in number than females. In 86% of
circumstances, females would fall to the ground when males came near. Those
that continue to fly “were all intercepted by a male.”
“Of the 27 motionless females, 21 (77.7%) were successful in deceiving the
coercive male,” University of Zurich researcher Rassim Khelifa said.
Although it is a dangerous tactic,
faking death seems to help females live longer and produce more descendants by evading
coercion. Khelifa further observed that when males are not present females lay
eggs in more open spaces, leading him to reason they lay eggs in thick
vegetation to dodge male attention.
The tactic is not unique-robber
flies fake their own deaths, so do the mantis and the spider kinds Pisaura
mirabilis. Males from these species play dead after mating so as not
to be eaten. This is, though, the first time the approach was witnessed in
dragonflies.
Death and mating have an uncomfortable
relation in the wild. National Geographic reported that
Pacific salmons die after breeding; mother Stegodyphus lineatus spiders
let their offspring to consume them after they are born; and male orb weavers
of the Argiope genus die after they insert their second sex
organ into the females of that species.
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