March 8, 2010
I took this photograph while walking on the beach in Florida over the weekend. My wife thought it was a jellyfish (and most people would say the same). What do you think it is?
In fact, this is a baby Portuguese Man-of-War. The balloon-like bladder you see here is called the pneumatophore (pronounced new-MAT-oh-fore), and it is the part of the Man-of-War that floats above the water, acting like a sail. They were named after Portuguese sailing ships for that reason.
There is a lot of the Man-of-War that you don’t see in this photograph. M-O-W are really colonies of different kinds of animals which act together as a single living thing. Their long tentacles trail behind them, underneath the water. These trailing tendrils are are covered with venom-filled nematocysts used to paralyze and kill fish and other small creatures. That’s why, if you’ve ever encountered one of these creatures in the ocean, you get a painful sting.
The animals that make up the Portuguese Man-of-War are all invertebrates, which means they do not have a backbone or spinal column. Insects, worms, and shellfish are all invertebrates.
Click this link to see an excellent video from National Geographic about the Portuguese Man-of-War.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
