Female dragonflies fake their own deaths to avoid aggressive males

How about a fun fact on your Tuesday afternoon?

Did you know that female dragonflies will play dead to avoid attention from aggressive male dragonflies?

BECAUSE THEY DO.

Ladies, have you ever been on a date with a guy that was so terrible, you were willing to fake your own death to get out of it? It's hard out there, I hear you!

This behavior, which has been previously observed in five other species, is called ‘death feigning’. It’s believed to have developed as a survival tactic, since female dragonflies often risk injury or death when coerced into mating.
“In a lot of dragonflies, males try to seize the female with or without consent,” Rassim Khelifa, a biologist who recently published a study on the phenomenon, told National Geographic. “The fittest — that is the fastest, most powerful male — is usually the one who mates.”

So basically, a male grabs a female whether she's interested or not, and because the male is physically dominant, the female isn't able to fight back...so she does the next best thing. Sounds like being a dragonfly isn't all that different from being a human female in a club

Nature is amazing!


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