One kind of female butterfly mates only once in its life -- and then closes its wings to avoid "harassment" when pursued by persistent and unwanted males, a Japanese researcher said.
Observations of the Small Copper Butterfly, a colourful orange and black butterfly, showed that some females closed their wings when males flew by, but only when they were males of their own species, said Jun-Ya Ide, an associate professor at Kurume Institute of Technology in Fukuoka, western Japan.
"When we looked into why, the males were courting the females. They do this very stubbornly, so the females sometimes try to get away -- or prefer to stay unobserved," he added.
Ide and his colleagues brought a model of a male butterfly near the females to test their reactions and found that young females that had yet to mate kept their wings open, but those that had already mated closed them.
Not only can the persistent attentions of unwanted suitors harm the delicate females, fleeing from them -- with the male often in pursuit -- uses up strength and can even shorten their lives, he added.
"Closing their wings makes them less visible, helping them avoid communication with their own species. We figured they were trying to avoid sexual harassment by males," Ide said.
(Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)
(Agencies)
日本一位研究人員稱，雌性紅灰蝶一生只交配一次，在其它雄性紅灰蝶不停地追求它時，它會合上翅膀躲避這種不必要的「騷擾」。
紅灰蝶全身黃黑相間。日本西部福岡市久留米大學副教授六月亞井發現，當雄性紅灰蝶飛近時，一些雌性紅灰蝶經常會合攏翅膀。
他補充說：「我們試圖揭開謎團時發現，這些雄蝶在追求雌蝶，它們非常執著，因此雌蝶有時想要逃開，或者寧可躲起來。」
六月亞井和他的同事製作了一隻雄蝶模型來靠近雌蝶，試探雌蝶的反應，結果發現，未交配過的雌蝶張大了翅膀，而已經交配過的雌蝶卻把翅膀合上了。
他補充稱，雄蝶對雌蝶不斷的追求不僅會傷害到這些纖弱的雌蝶，而且在雄蝶窮追不捨時，雌蝶四處躲避雄蝶的騷擾，會過於疲憊甚至折壽。
他說：「合上翅膀可以讓雌蝶不那麼顯眼，避免與同類紅灰蝶的接觸。我們認為它們是在躲避雄蝶的性騷擾。」
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（中國日報網英語點津 Julie 編輯： 馮明惠）