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posted by on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the playing-hard-to-get dept.

Rassim Khelifa was standing by a pond in the Swiss Alps collecting insect eggs one day, when he noticed something strange. A dragonfly being hotly pursued by another suddenly took a dive and crashed to the ground, seemingly dead on the spot, before springing back to life and making a grand escape once the coast was clear. The observations that followed confirmed a previously unknown phenomenon – the insect had faked its death to give a wannabe lover the slip.
...
But the aversion to clingy males doesn't stop there. Khelifa says that when the female is leaving the reproductive site is the time at which they are most vulnerable to coercion from the males, and it is here that they enact their most dramatic repudiative measure. Females were always chased by males after departure in his observations, and 31 out of 35 of those witnessed decided to crash to the ground rather than pair up with a mate.

Of those crashes, 71 percent landed the dragonfly in vegetation like bush or dense grass, and 87 percent – 27 out of 31 – were followed by faked deaths. The females do this by laying motionless upside down. This behavior is atypical of a dragonfly, and is apparently so convincing that it allowed 21 of the 27 to trick the male and escape.

Also covered in Elle, New Scientist (may be pay-walled), Z News.

Original paper: Ecology DOI: 10.1002/ecy.1781


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2

 
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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by bob_super on Wednesday May 03 2017, @05:30PM (3 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday May 03 2017, @05:30PM (#503780)

    > apparently so convincing that it allowed 21 of the 27 to trick the male and escape.

    "Which still leave us with over 20% of males keeping on pursuing someone who's apparently dead, your honor. I plead Natural Instincts."

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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by ikanreed on Wednesday May 03 2017, @06:03PM

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 03 2017, @06:03PM (#503803) Journal

    Natural Instincts was my plea for killing nursing babies in order to free women up for reproduction and they gave me a buncha stupid lawyer talk about how "That's not a justification for 'infanticide'"

    I swear, the restrictions at IHOP get more unreasonable every fucking year.

  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 03 2017, @09:20PM (1 child)

    by kaszz (4211) on Wednesday May 03 2017, @09:20PM (#503959) Journal

    Which is why "no" isn't always a no and the boys have an innate awareness for this. If the behavior won't match the talk. Behavior will adapt to behavior (ie reality) and not the talk.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04 2017, @09:21AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04 2017, @09:21AM (#504253)

      Then the "boys" will be sent to fucking prison!

      Viva Democracy.