If we think about excuses that people may make in order to not be intimate with their partner, a few common ones come to mind. ‘I have a headache’, ‘I’m not feeling so well’, or the ever so popular ‘I’m tired’. Well, making excuses may be the human way of dealing with such situation, but female dragonflies take it to a whole new level, by faking their own death!
Rassim Khelifa from the University of Zurich made this discovery while in the Swiss Alps collecting larvae samples. He noticed someone rather funny about Moorland Hawker dragonflies.
Rassim noticed that when approached by a male dragonfly, the ladies fell to the ground. The unlucky suitor would fly away, and the lady would “come back to life.”
Experts have been studying dragonflies for years, and were completed taken back by this discovery.
After Khelifa discovered the hilarious act while in the wild, he set off to make sure this is exactly what is happening by setting up a controlled study. The study involved 31 female dragonflies, and a whopping 21 of these flying ladies faked their own death to avoid the mating process. Khelifa noticed that 21 female dragonflies were successful in their attempt. Sadly, ten of the female dragonflies were not so lucky, as the males apparently didn’t care if they were alive or not! Eew.
We also want to point out that female dragonflies do not stay with the male partner after mating. In conclusion, female dragonflies are hardcore!