The Nature LibraryEN·ES
iNat·117305GenusAnimalia28,818 field observations
  1. Animals
  2. ›Cnidarians
  3. ›Hydrozoans
  4. ›Hydroidolina
  5. ›Siphonophores
  6. ›Cystonectae
  7. ›Man O' Wars
Man O' Wars
Plate 1 of 8. (c) mattyratty, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) · via iNaturalist

Man O' Wars

Physalia

Physalia is a genus of the order Siphonophorae, colonies of four specialized polyps and medusoids that drift on the surface of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. Although these organisms look like a single multicellular organism, each specimen is actually a colony of minute organisms called zooids that have to work together for survival. A gas-filled bladder resembling a blue bottle provides buoyancy, and long tentacles of venomous cnidocytes provide a means of capturing prey. A...

Continue reading on Wikipedia
§·

Where it lives

Recorded sightings

—

geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.

Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.

§·

In the stacks

Searching the stacks…

Every page naming Physalia in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →

This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 117305.