How to Use siphonophore in a Sentence

siphonophore

noun
  • Take the case of the deep-sea siphonophore, which makes red light to trap its prey.
    — Discover Magazine, 29 June 2010
  • Some boxy siphonophores only become opaque along their edges.
    — Literary Hub, 25 Sep. 2025
  • With their long stinging tentacles, these big siphonophores do seem like the most likely suspects.
    — Matthew Wills, JSTOR Daily, 3 Apr. 2026
  • Besides the gigantic siphonophore, the explorers also found large groups of glass sponges and other species.
    — Fox News, 14 Apr. 2020
  • Despite its powers of illumination, the prayid siphonophore itself has no eyes.
    — Valerie Ross, Discover Magazine, 25 Mar. 2019
  • In addition to the huge siphonophore, scientists aboard the Falkor identified up to 30 new species.
    — Devi Lockwood, New York Times, 14 Apr. 2020
  • Other animals, including certain siphonophores and swimming snails, do this as well, but only over parts of their bodies.
    — Literary Hub, 25 Sep. 2025
  • The woolly siphonophores arrange themselves in much the same structure as the giant siphonophores, with both species sharing a similar float and a similar stem.
    — Sam Walters, Discover Magazine, 28 Aug. 2023
  • And a siphonophore makes waves in the Indian Ocean for strongly resembling Silly String.
    — CNN, 7 Apr. 2020
  • But the sting of the Portuguese man o’war—which is technically a siphonophore and not a jellyfish—is particularly painful.
    — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 4 May 2017
  • Dandelion siphonophore This potentially new species of dandelion siphonophore was imaged on the deep slopes of Rose Atoll.
    — Melissa Breyer, Treehugger, 26 May 2023
  • Many of the animals, like the beautiful siphonophore above, come in peachy-pink hues—that’s because red light doesn’t travel far in the dark ocean’s depths, providing the perfect camouflage.
    — Andrea Thompson, Scientific American, 25 Dec. 2025
  • Officials said anyone who spots the creature – which is a siphonophore, not a jellyfish, according to the publication – should report the sighting.
    — Madeline Farber, Fox News, 10 Aug. 2018
  • Unlike most animals that grow as a single entity, this siphonophore is a composite of thousands of cloned bodies, each specialized for different tasks.
    — Anna Nordseth, Discover Magazine, 1 Mar. 2024
  • That said, the majority of siphonophores stick to the open ocean, with longer siphonophores drifting in deeper waters than shorter siphonophores, since powerful currents close to the surface can shred siphonophore colonies apart.
    — Sam Walters, Discover Magazine, 28 Aug. 2023
  • This large siphonophore, a gelatinous creature similar to a jellyfish, wowed ocean scientists exploring the deep sea off the coast of Western Australia.
    — Danielle Hall, Smithsonian Magazine, 17 Dec. 2020
  • Check out this beautiful *giant* siphonophore Apolemia recorded on #NingalooCanyons expedition.
    — Nora McGreevy, Smithsonian Magazine, 10 Apr. 2020
  • The Portuguese man-of-war is a siphonophore, a species closely related to jellyfish, according to the National Ocean Service.
    — Megan Marples, CNN, 8 Apr. 2022
  • Scientists have discovered a new creature called a siphonophore (trying saying that five times fast) lurking in the Indian Ocean, with an outer ring measuring 154 feet in length.
    — Alex Chaet, CNN, 10 Apr. 2020
  • The Portuguese man-of-war is a siphonophore, meaning it is made up of a colony of organisms that each have a special function, according to the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife.
    — Caroline Wilburn, Houston Chronicle, 9 Mar. 2026
  • Closely related to this group are the siphonophores, which range from small animals being moved along by one or two pulsing chambers to large, complex animals, which can be seen as either a colony of different types of members or as one animal with organs that do different things.
    — Literary Hub, 25 Sep. 2025
  • Occasionally, a larger animal appeared—a pyrosome resembling a glowing cucumber, or a ribbonlike siphonophore with wispy stinging tentacles.
    — Stephanie Stone, Smithsonian Magazine, 2 Sep. 2021
  • Somewhere over the course of their evolution, the class of hydrozoans — which includes certain kinds of jellyfish, hydras, and colonial siphonophores such as the Portuguese man-of-war — lost the genes that operate circadian clocks in the rest of the animal kingdom.
    — Marlowe Starling, Quanta Magazine, 20 Mar. 2026
  • Ernst Haeckel’s intention was to make the natural forms of elusive organisms accessible to artists, and supply them with a new visual vocabulary of protists, mollusks, trilobites, siphonophores, fungi, and echinoderms.
    — The New York Review of Books, 16 Dec. 2018
  • The man o’ war, while closely resembling a jellyfish, is in fact a siphonophore, which means it is comprised of four separate organisms that each perform a specific task, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 21 July 2021

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

Last Updated: