So , you ’re in a bar , or on a bus , or grabbing a coffee berry , something like that – and that bozo that kept grinning at you like a deranged werewolf decides to stroll on over , say hello , and strike up a highly undesirable flirtatious conversation . No matter how many suggest you drop , he persevere in trying to pull ahead you over – so what do you do ?
Well , you could always take a cue from female dragonflies , who have come up with a rather effective path off putting off too aggressive male wooer . When push comes to shove , they plummet to the land , cramp around a minute , then trifle dead .
Writing in the journalEcology , Rassim Khelifa – an entomologist from the University of Zurich with a preference for the hovering critters – distinguish this as an “ extreme intimate difference of opinion resoluteness , ” which we theorise is fair enough . Desperate prison term call for desperate measure , though .
recite a story of the meter he first saw this strange behaviour back in 2015 , he explained how a male moorland hawker dragonfly was chase after a female person for a prolonged period of time . finally , the female all of a sudden spiral down to the floor , crashed with quite the thump , and remain there .
“ The male person hovered above the female person for a couple minute and then leave behind , ” Khelifa write in his study . “ I expected that the female could be unconscious or even numb after her crash landing place , but she storm me by fly by quickly as I come near . ”
“ The question go up : did she just fob that male ? Did she fake decease to avoid virile harassment ? ”
The stage of avert too strong-growing men - dragonfly version . Khelifa , 2017 / Ecology
In the 72 hours since , he observed 27 other incidence of this behavior , with 21 of them being successful . He suspects it only have position in surface area that are comparatively saturated in dragonflies , and where the competition for females is specially vivid .
manipulate death has been encounter in other animals , of course , but it ’s usually because they ’re trying to debar marauder , not to evade pestering potential married person .
According to Khelifa , this would in all probability be “ the fifth in the beast kingdom after a nuptial gift - giving spider , two species of robber fly , and a European mantis ” that fake death to break away harassment .
Admittedly , although feigning demise as a human female person to avoid a particularly nark human male may prove to be effectual in the short - full term , you may cause quite the commotion among other passersby who genuinely think that you might be dead .
[ H / T : New Scientist ]
