Female dragonflies have found a way to get rid of aggressive males: fake their own death.

This tactic may seem to border on the extreme, but female moorland hawker dragonflies will not hesitate to commit harakiri in order to dodge their male admirers.

If these winged ladies feel that their male counterparts can't take no for an answer, they don't mind to employ theatrics by pretending to plunge to their death.

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It was Rassim Khelifa from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, who first discovered the insect's queer behavior.

According to Khelifa, a female moorland hawker dragonfly seemed to know how to fake her own death, as she crash-dived to the ground after being pursued by a male.

She then lay motionless on her back, and only stood up when the male dragonfly left the scene.

"I was surprised," shared Khelifa, who claimed to have never witnessed anything like this in his 10 years of studying dragonflies.

Unlike other species of dragonflies, female hawker dragonflies are not protected by their male partners, which makes them highly vulnerable to harassment once they lay their eggs.

In fact, this could even become a serious health issue for the female, as another sexual encounter could copulate all her eggs, and consequently, damage her reproductive tract.

Khelifa also learned other things during his study.

Aside from the fact that female dragonflies could fake their own death, the males can patiently search for long stretches for females who would mate with them and then fly away once they have copulated.

Moreover, Khelifa also discovered that the longer male dragonflies stay in the area to find their mates, the greater the possibility that females will play dead.

Unfortunately, he also found out that female dragonflies who don't practice this art of deception are most often intercepted and are forced to mate.

"Of the 27 motionless females, 21 (77.7 percent) were successful in deceiving the coercive male," the zoologist said, pointing out that not all female dragonflies who fake their death are successful in turning back their male suitors.