Dragonflies are blessed with some natural features, and some of the observed ones include its ability to fly a long distance for survival, and early anticipation of a prey movement before making the fast kill. A recent study conducted by the researchers has revealed a startling information on the species' sexual behavior.
According to the study report, female common hawkers also known as moorland hawkers have the tendency to fake-crash a death to prevent Sexual Harassment from males.
The stunning discovery
Rassim Khelifa, a zoologist from the University of Zurich, was conducting experiments at the Alps, and at that time, he saw a strange thing which led to this discovery.
He noticed a dragonfly being chased by another near a lake. The dragonfly which is being chased after a long fly crashed to the ground and laid motionless for several minutes. The chasing fly left the scene after hovering above its body for a while. Rassim Khelifa understood that the chaser was a male, while the victim was a female.
Khelifa recounted the incident stating that the supposed to be dead dragonfly flew away after remaining unconscious for a while. The scientist doubted that it was a well-orchestrated trick from the fly, and he started researching on it in the coming months. Interestingly, he noticed similar behavior from other dragonflies which helped him come to the conclusion that females in this species used to Fake Death to prevent sexual exploitation from males.
When an unwanted male admirer comes a-buzzing, female dragonflies will plunge to the ground & fake their own deaths https://t.co/FCBJc9IYAJ pic.twitter.com/RaQaO41lec
— MotherNatureNetwork (@MotherNatureNet) May 7, 2017
Playing dead is not always successful
Even though, females fake death to avoid exploitation, it may not become a successful combating method all the time.
Sometimes, male dragonflies will understand their trick and will pounce on the female bodies for an intimate sexual encounter.
However, many female dragonflies consider this method as the best way to avoid sexual harassment. The zoologist noted that 77.7 percentage of the female dragonflies were successful in protecting themselves by faking death, while the remaining 22.3 percentage failed to deceive the male attackers.
In a recently released statement, Khelifa who has been busy studying the various behavior of dragonflies for more than a decade expressed his excitement on this newly found characteristic. The researcher believes that females are adopting this trick to prevent permanent damage of reproductive tract due to uncontrolled sexual activities.
