The Atlantic
Portuguese man o' war (
Physalia physalis), also known as the
Man-of-war,
bluebottle, or
floating terror, is a
marine cnidarian of the family
Physaliidae. Its venomous tentacles can deliver a painful
sting. In spite of its outward appearance, the Portuguese man o' war is not a common
jellyfish but a
siphonophore, which is distinguished from jellyfish in that it is not a a single
multicellular organism, but a
colony of specialized minute individual organisms called
zooids. These zooids are attached to one another and physiologically integrated to the extent that they are incapable of independent survival and take on the function of a single organism.