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Project Noah Nature School
Physalia physalis
The Portuguese Man-of-War is a gas-filled, balloonlike float that travels by floating on the surface of the water. Its shape changes as the wind changes to catch the prevailing winds. It has numerous tentacles of varying lengths; some tentacles can be 6' long. It is venoumous and should not be approached or handled.
Seen in the waters of Key West; we were at the Sunset Pier Restaurant which is right on the water.
This is a fascinating, beautiful creature but is highly venomous by its sting. Merely coming in contact with a tentacle can result in a venomous sting.
Spotted on Feb 14, 2013
Submitted on Apr 30, 2013
17 Comments
Cool , looks like a jelly fish!
Nice spotting!
interesting
Great series!
Wow! Did this get some attention! Thank you, everyone for the comments; I'm so glad I got to see the Portugese Man-of-War and was able to capture it with the camera. Thank you, too....SO MUCH.....Project Noah for the fun facts about this creature. My day has been made :) :)
Very cool spot great series !
I did not know that "Fun Fact" about the Portuguese man-of-war. What about young ones, are they already colonized, but just smaller? I ask this because I was on the shore of Guam at low tide and was stung by multiple small jellyfish like organisms. At the time I was told they were Portuguese man-of-war. In any case, in a short time I was doubled up on the ground and could not walk for at least 20 minutes. When I finally recovered, I had thin scars on my legs where the tentacles touched me. Very beautiful, but deadly!
Fun fact! The Portuguese man-of-war is not a jellyfish - in fact it is not even a single organism, but a colonial organism made up of many minute individuals called zooids. Each zooid is an individual with a specific function, such as feeding, attack or defense, but their integration with each other is so strong that the colony appears and operates as one large organism, and each zooid is unable to survive independently.
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wow would love to see one of these! you got really nice clear shots! :) x
Marvelous!
Very interesting and beautiful!
Amazing
that is so cool!
how interesting...thanks for sharing!
Looks like a jellyfish with a Greek army helmet on!
Spectacular series!
Great photos! I wouldn't want to swim into it, but great to see