Same, hun (Picture: EyeEm/Getty)

Female dragonflies have a rather extreme technique for avoiding the unwanted attention of males.

They quite literally fake their own deaths.

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No botched canoe accident followed by an easily-traced move to Panama in the style of John Darwin for these ladies though.

Female dragonflies have been observed physically dropping out of the sky – dive-bombing to the ground – so males think they are dead.


Rassim Khelifa, who has studied dragonflies for more than 10 years, witnessed the extreme man-dodging in the moorland hawker dragonfly.

Ergh, men (Picture: Shutterstock)

Kelifa, from the University of Switzerland, watched 27 out of 31 females plummeting and pretending to be dead to avoid encounters with men.

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He told the New Scientist: ‘I was surprised. It’s likely that females expanded its use to overcome male coercion’



I feel you winged sister (Picture: Shutterstock)

It’s believed female moorland hawkers employ the technique because they’re often harassed by males when trying to lay their eggs.

In dragonflies, a single sexual encounter is enough to fertilise all eggs and a second sexual encounter could damage their reproductive systems.

Read the full study here.

Not today, Satan (Picture: Shuttershock)