Water Horrors: Portuguese Man O' War

 Have you ever heard of a Portuguese Man O' War? 


Spooky water things is my jam (RE: Seafood), and everyone is tired of my niche interest, so I'll dump these abominations here when I feel like it. Today, we have the Portuguese Man O' War.  

Rebecca R. Helm. Image by Denis Riek.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portuguese_man-o-war_Physalia_sp.png
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

Also called the bluebottle (which isn't as cool), they are jelly-fish-like creatures in the Atlantic Ocean and the India Ocean, floating at the surface. They float passively with their gas-filled bladder at the top, and their poisonous tenacles can reach 160 feet long (Oceana) though the average is about 30 feet long (National Ocean Service) (though these numbers tend to fluctuate depending on who is reporting). Even when they are dead, they can sting you! (Rude.) Their stings "shouldn't" be fatal, but they hurt a lot.  These creatures look like jellyfish, but they are actually a colonial organism of 4 different systems working together (National Geographic).

"Portuguese man o' war" by Joi is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Plural is men o' war (and not man o' wars, which yes grammatically makes sense but it still bothers me). The name is because they resemble...wait for it...Portuguese war ships.  

Why the heck do these things exist? To give us nightmares, that's why. There's more images and videos, but due to copyright and lack of time, please feel free to go down this rabbit hole of floating horrors at at 1 AM. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_man_o%27_war#

https://www.britannica.com/animal/Portuguese-man-of-war 

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/550892/facts-about-portuguese-man-o-war 

https://oceana.org/marine-life/portuguese-man-o-war/ 

https://www.dnr.sc.gov/marine/sertc/The%20Portuguese%20man.pdf

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/portuguese-man-o-war.html 

http://nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/facts/portuguese-man-of-war

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