Have you ever wondered what damselfly nymphs are doing during their year of development before emerging? If things are going according to plan, they are spending most of their time lying in wait for unsuspecting critters to munch on. What’s really cool is how they capture their prey. Damselfly nymphs have a modified lower jaw (labium) that they keep folded up between their legs. When a small organism blunders within range, the labium shoots out with lightning speed and the snags the critter, pulling it in to be chopped into bite sized pieces as it is eaten alive. Yeah, kind of like something out of a horror movie (the movie Alien comes to mind). Here is a short video that shows how it all goes down (without sound).
