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Sticker of Australian blue riverdamsel
Bug card No. 0206 of 4,939

Australian blue riverdamsel

Pseudagrion crenatum
Name means: “notched, after the deeply split tips at the end of the male's tail”

The Australian blue riverdamsel is a thin, delicate damselfly coloured blue and black. It flutters along rivers and streams in Australia and New Guinea. It is so new to science that it only got its own name in 2026.

Lives in
Northern and eastern Australia and New Guinea, near streams, rivers and ponds
Top speed
about 10 km/h (6.2 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Damselflies do not sting and do not bite people.
What does it eat?
Like all damselflies, it catches small flying insects. Its young live in the water and hunt there too.
For real!Photo of Australian blue riverdamsel
Picture by Charles J. Sharp. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

For many years people thought it was the same as a damselfly from Asia. In 2026 scientists showed it is a kind of its own.

2

The males have little claspers at the end of the tail, and their tips are deeply split. That is how experts tell it apart.

3

Its family usually lives at streams, rivers and still water where plants poke up out of the water.

4

Its group name, Pseudagrion, means false Agrion. Agrion was the old name once given to all damselflies.

you asked

Most asked questions about Australian blue riverdamsel

?Where does the Australian blue riverdamsel live?

In northern and eastern Australia and on the island of New Guinea, mostly in warm places.

?Is a damselfly dangerous?

No. Damselflies cannot sting and do not bite people. They only hunt tiny insects.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Pseudagrion crenatum
Named by
Seehausen & Marinov, 2026
Group
Dragonflies and damselflies
Family
Coenagrionidae
Classification
Insecta > Odonata > Coenagrionidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Blue riverdamsel

Where the facts come from

  1. Pseudagrion crenatum (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Charles J. Sharp. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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More from the same group: Dragonflies and damselflies

Also at home here: Ponds, rivers and shores

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