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Atlantic Portuguese Man o' War — printable fact sheet
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Atlantic Portuguese Man o' War
Physalia physalis
The Portuguese man o' war is not a jellyfish, and more surprisingly it is not really an individual animal at all. It is a siphonophore: a floating colony of specialised bodies called zooids, each descended from the same larva, each genetically identical, and each so specialised …
Did you know?
- Despite looking like a jellyfish, the Portuguese Man o' War belongs to a different group of organisms called siphonophores.
- It is not a jellyfish and not even a single animal — it is a colony of specialised bodies, none of which can survive on its own. It cannot swim: the gas float works as a sail, and it goes wherever the wind pushes it. Individuals come in left-sailing and right-sailing forms, so one storm can never strand the whole population. Its stinging cells still fire even after it has washed up dead.
What I learned
Draw the atlantic portuguese man o' war
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