While it is
a survival strategy of most insects to fake their own death in order to escape
their predators, dragonflies seem a little different. Dragonflies do the same
playacting so as to get rid of some over-enthusiastic male dragonflies, as
reported by the magazine New Scientist.
Almost
hilariously, women all over the Animal world seem to have the same experiences
when it comes to males – they can’t seem to understand and this has been
experienced by the moorland hawker Dragonfly too. They would suddenly fake
plummet to its own death to get away from some Romeo-Esque dragonfly.
In a survey
by the Ecological Society of America, it has been reported that the instances
of a female Dragonfly faking their own death is not as rare as it was thought
to be. Almost 27 species of female dragonflies out of 31 species have tried the
same tactic when it comes to evading male dragonflies. Out of which 21 happened
successfully. There were instances where males acted a bit disgusting – they
would not even mind copulating with a dead dragonfly.
The lead
researcher at the University of Zurich, Rassim Khelifa, believes that the
female Dragonfly is simply being extremely cunning. When the male dragonflies
go away, the females would rise, brush themselves clean and go their way. And
to be honest, sex for the moorland hawker Dragonfly isn’t exactly easy as
continuous sex might actually destroy their reproductive tract.
This entire
event is quite surprising. Add to that, this phenomenon was never observed
before during experiments.
The animal
world sounds quite glorious, doesn’t it?
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