While investigating the late life phase of fruit flies, often used by biologists as model organisms due to their quick generation time and vast understandings of their genetics and biology, a different group of researchers found another oddity. They discovered that regardless of a female fly’s age, in the two weeks leading up to their death, their fertility dropped. Soon this was also found to be the case with the male fly’s fertility, too. It could be to do with the fact that producing eggs for a female fly is costly, and if they are about to die they may give up on it.
via “Death Spiral” Could Be A Fourth Phase Of Life | IFLScience.