The Portuguese Man O' War, also known as the Blue Bottle, is one of the most venomous creatures on earth. With its relatively small air bladder it floats on the surface of the ocean dragging its long tentacles through the water hunting for prey. Little fish touching these almost invisible yarns are paralysed immediately and can be digested by the jellyfish. Their sting is also potentially dangerous to humans; they have been responsible for several fatalities, but usually only cause intense pain. On the other hand this creature has been a great source of inspiration for humanity. The shape of sails for ships has actually been derived from this jellyfish’s air bladder which incorporates an erectable sail.
The Portuguese Man O' War, also known as the Blue Bottle, is one of the most venomous creatures on earth. With its relatively small air bladder it floats on the surface of the ocean dragging its long tentacles through the water hunting for prey. Little fish touching these almost invisible yarns are paralysed immediately and can be digested by the jellyfish. Their sting is also potentially dangerous to humans; they have been responsible for several fatalities, but usually only cause intense pain. On the other hand this creature has been a great source of inspiration for humanity. The shape of sails for ships has actually been derived from this jellyfish’s air bladder which incorporates an erectable sail.
The Giant Dwarf
Another amazing fact about this creature is its astonishing size: While the air bladder ranges from just above an inch to half a foot only the tentacles can be as long as 120 feet! However after catching prey or in case of a potential danger the tentacles can be contracted quite significantly to just a few inches of length. With a bladder size of just above an inch and tentacles of 3 yards the Portuguese Man O’ War shown in the picture is comparably small.
Not even a “real” jellyfish
From a scientific point of view a Portuguese Man O’ Wars is not even a real jellyfish but rather a colony of specialized polyps. “Normal” jellyfish pass through two different body stages during their lifes, i.e. they undergo a metamorphosis transforming their bodies – just like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. In its first stage a jellyfish is a polyp - mostly residing on a substratum. This polyp contains all kind of organs, i.e. something like a stomach, tentacles and many more. Eventually the metamorphosis takes place and the polyp detaches from the substratum, undergoes a transformation and becomes a floating medusa, also known as jellyfish. This medusa can still look like the polyp just detached from the ground. Hence a jellyfish is formed out of one single polyp. At sexual reproduction a larva is formed drifting through the water until it finds an appropriate substratum to attach to and to form a polyp. This is where the whole cycle starts to repeat.
In comparison Blue Bottles are pretty different. They do not pass through two different stages but stay in the polyp stage. Let’s have a detailed look: It all starts with a larva created at sexual reproduction – just as mentioned above in the “normal” jellyfish paragraph. The larva forms a polyp which is NOT attached to any substratum but floating through the ocean. This single polyp has got a pretty long phylum. In the course of the time along this phylum additional polyps accrue by budding. All these additional polyps stay attached to either the phylum or any of the new polyps. Subsequently these polyps start to specialize and form colonies of polyps with similar functionality. At the end a Portuguese Man O’ War comprises of four sorts of specialized polyps respectively polyp colonies: The air bladder is one single polyp, then there are the polpys forming the tentacles. Thirdly there are the Gastrozooids which digest the prey and finally the Gonozooids being responsible for sexual reproduction.
So, after releasing sperm and eggs a new larva is formed and the cycle starts again.
This means, the Blue Bottle does not consist of one polyp covering all body functions but a set of replicas with each replica specializing on one of the four functions outlined above.
So, Blue Bottles are truly amazing creatures!
