(July 20, 2019 at 4:37 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: If I may contribute to the aquatic nightmare discussion, I bumped into one of these while swimming as a young lad. Luckily, it didn't sting me. I had no idea what the fuck it was, but I was super horrified by it. And I swam away quickly.
On a scientific note, this organism is called the Portuguese Man o' War and it is actually two organisms that live in such symbiosis that it appears like it is one organism. Fascinating stuff really.
You were lucky it didn't sting you, but its a very interesting symbiose of cnidaria phylum organisms. one floats them around, another has the venomous tentacles and others are responsible for reproduction and digestion.
