You're in a club. You see someone approaching you who you want nothing to do with. What do you do? Dash for the toilets? Make an excuse and head for the exit? Flat out run away? Or maybe you adopt the dragonfly technique, dropping to the floor and pretending to be dead?
Now, the latter suggestion isn't really feasible in a club, given that it'll incite mass panic and St John's Ambulance will be on the scene within seconds and the establishment will face closing - but none of those issues are present for dragonflies.
Credit: PA
Advert
They obviously don't go through the same lengths Michael Townley goes through in Grand Theft Auto, striking a deal with a government agent to fake his killing, only to put him up in a huge mansion with his changed identity. They just simply begin plummeting to the ground in the hope that advancing males think they're dead.
Rassim Khelifa, from the University of Switzerland, studied the behaviour of the moorland hawker dragonflies and found that 27 out of 31 females took on this technique to avoid interaction with males.
"I was surprised. It's likely that females expanded its use to overcome male coercion," he told New Scientist.
There is method to the madness, though. For dragonflies one sexual encounter is enough to fertilise all of their eggs, and any further encounters only puts the chance of the eggs being damaged higher.
Advert
"In fact, males have evolved a sophisticated penis structure that sweeps sperm out of the reproductive tract of the female," he said. "Therefore, since one copulation is enough to fertilize all eggs, it is disadvantageous to carry out extra-copulations given the potential survival costs."
You've got to give it to them for their dedication to sidestepping the opposite gender.
Fair enough.
Featured Image Credit: PA