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By-the-wind Sailor — printable fact sheet
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By-the-wind Sailor
Velella velella
Velella is not a jellyfish and not even really an animal in the singular sense: it is a floating colony of specialised polyps, some for feeding, some for reproduction, some for stinging, all hanging beneath a single flat, oval float. Rising from that float is a rigid, transparen…
Did you know?
- Mass strandings of By-the-wind Sailors can turn entire stretches of beach bright blue, sometimes covering miles of coastline after strong winds.
- Its sting is harmless to humans, unlike its relative the Portuguese man o' war, though it is wise not to touch your eyes afterwards. It is hunted by the blue dragon sea slug and by the violet snail Janthina, which builds a raft of mucus bubbles to float alongside its prey. Velella reproduces by releasing thousands of microscopic free-swimming medusae that sink into deep water, breed, and produce the next generation of sailing colonies — so the animal you see on the beach is only half of a two-stage life cycle.
What I learned
Draw the by-the-wind sailor
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