This is beautiful! That dark blue background is just perfect with the white highlighting of the clear skin. Very nicely done.
Yes, it's a dragonfly.
Strictly speaking, that grasping mouthpart is a labium, not a mandible. It seems that in the dragonflies the various mouth parts have shifted responsibilities such that the mandibles have shrunk to essentially absent, while the labium has expanded from a minor manipulator into a vicious hinged grasping organ, tipped with labial palps that act more like a cross between claws and fangs.
Adding to the effectiveness, "The overlapping visual field of the large compound eyes is located precisely at the point of full extension of the labium. When a potential meal wanders into this field of view, the mouthparts shoot forward and immediately retract carrying the trapped prey to the mouth."
See Figure 15 on page 13 of
http://salinella.bio.uottawa.ca/BIO3323 ... nat_04.pdf .
In my experience, to says that the prey "wanders" into range does not do justice to the dragonfly. When I've raised dragonfly nymphs, I have watched them track and stalk prey starting from several inches away. They're very effective predators.
Makes you really glad that they're a lot smaller than we are, doesn't it?
--Rik
