How to Use damselfly in a Sentence

damselfly

noun
  • For more than a hundred million years, these three male damselflies have been waiting for their damsels.
    — National Geographic, 22 Mar. 2017
  • For some species of damselfly, egg laying is a difficult task.
    — Cecilia Rodriguez, Forbes, 25 Oct. 2021
  • Also, keep an eye peeled for fish slashing at damselflies or minnows skipping across the surface.
    — Gerald Almy, Field & Stream, 20 Mar. 2023
  • Bronzebacks might chase down a damselfly one minute, grab a cricket, or nail a skittering shiner the next.
    — Gerald Almy, Field & Stream, 20 Mar. 2023
  • But the plantation damselflies had evolved no such resistance.
    — Jake Buehler, National Geographic, 31 May 2019
  • Pickerel frogs patrolled the damp fringes, and dragonflies and damselflies darted among the lily pads.
    — Murray Carpenter, New York Times, 31 Oct. 2016
  • Dragonflies and damselflies are carnivorous and eat a lot of small insects.
    — Jenny Krane, Better Homes & Gardens, 18 June 2023
  • This is a damselfly, an insect group closely related to dragonflies that have a dantier appearance.
    — Miri Talabac, Baltimore Sun, 22 June 2022
  • In any case, the eggs are laid in the water, which, contrary to most people's expectations, is where both dragonflies and damselflies spend most of their lives.
    — Ben Raines | [email protected], AL.com, 30 Aug. 2017
  • Emotions missing during the six months of pandemic—spontaneity, hope, joy—flitted like damselflies over the millpond.
    — Kevin West, Travel + Leisure, 5 May 2024
  • Mating in modern damselflies and their close kin, the dragonflies, has been described as a complex mix of cooperation and conflict.
    — Sarah Gibbens, National Geographic, 22 Mar. 2017
  • This contradicts many scientific models that suggested global warming would doom predator-prey species such as the damselfly.
    — Maureen MacKey, Fox News, 30 Apr. 2023
  • Through hours of watching, Tiplea learned the behaviors of the damselflies, a close relative of dragonflies but with slimmer bodies and narrower wings.
    — Daniel Stone, National Geographic, 12 Dec. 2019
  • That’s what happened to three 100-million-year-old male damselflies, which gave scientists a peek into the courtship behaviors of these ancient creatures.
    — Erin Blakemore, Smithsonian, 23 Mar. 2017
  • Look into my eyes by Pete Burford Being cold-blooded, damselflies and other insects cannot generate their own body heat.
    — Carlyn Kranking, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 July 2024
  • The team proposes that the constructions serve primarily as a defense from predators such as hummingbirds or helicopter damselflies.
    — Gennaro Tomma, Scientific American, 19 Jan. 2026
  • Crappie like to hover below their prey, fining in place and examining slow-swimming invertebrates such as damselfly, dragonfly, and mayfly nymphs, as well as small leeches.
    — Cory Schmidt, Outdoor Life, 15 Apr. 2026
  • The Presidio Trust, a federal agency that manages the park, has repopulated the coastal landscape with turtles, newts and damselflies that once lived there.
    — Dino Grandoni, Washington Post, 15 July 2024
  • One key threat comes from helicopter damselflies (pseudostigmatinae), which hover in front of webs and selectively target small spiders measuring 3 to 6 mm.
    — New Atlas, 21 Dec. 2025
  • There are 167 species of dragonflies and damselflies in Wisconsin, according to Jackson.
    — Drew Dawson, Journal Sentinel, 7 Sep. 2023
  • But Yee points out that other, medically relevant mosquitoes have predators similar to damselflies.
    — Jake Buehler, National Geographic, 31 May 2019
  • According to Discover Wildlife, fen raft spiders tend to eat other spiders, damselflies, dragonfly larvae, and tadpoles.
    — Raven Brunner, People.com, 5 Nov. 2024
  • But damselfly larvae—a major predator of larval mosquitoes—were conspicuously missing from the plantations.
    — Jake Buehler, National Geographic, 31 May 2019
  • Almost a quarter of freshwater animals, including crabs, crayfish, shrimp, damselfly and fish, are threatened of going extinct, according to a new, global study that was published on Wednesday.
    — Filip Timotija, The Hill, 8 Jan. 2025
  • Wim Vooijs cleverly reduced a damselfly to a series of shimmering light circles to win the Butterflies & Dragonflies category.
    — Cecilia Rodriguez, Forbes, 5 Feb. 2023
  • Beetles battling for mating rights, a bear stalking through the rainforest and a damselfly perched in front of a waterfall are just some of the many scenes that wowed judges during the annual Close-up Photographer of the Year contest.
    — Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 Jan. 2025
  • Orbiting, stalling, inverting The study team compiled hundreds of slow-motion videos capturing the behaviors of butterflies, moths, bees, wasps, dragonflies and damselflies, and found that the critters were not attracted to faraway lights.
    — Taylor Nicioli, CNN, 7 Feb. 2024
  • Through macro and micro photography, come explore the captivating world of local dragonfly and damselfly fauna including their anatomy, life history, behaviors and diversity.
    — Chicago Tribune, chicagotribune.com, 27 Apr. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'damselfly.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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