I heard these larvae can deliver a pretty painful bite. Do you know anything about this? I read that adult dragonflies cannot bite, however, I distinctly remember one biting me as a child after I caught it in a net and picked it up by it's abdomen. I was just a kid, but I ran inside crying...partially from the pain, partially from the shock.

chewing mouthparts. When you hold them in you hand they will chew on your fingers. It takes a big dragonfly to break the skin, however, but a big dragonfly can do it. Jane had little drops of blood on her finger from a large Libellula she was holding one time!

But you needn't worry about a dragonfly swooping down and attacking you, which is what we sometimes hear from folks. You are much too big to enter their field of vision as a prey item.