Man O War Symbiosis

Over the weekend, my wife and I went to the beach and there were many Portuguese Man o’ War which is a type of toxic animal washed up on the beach. This beautiful creature is actually two separate organisms living symbiotically. The bubble or what I like to think of as the third ventricle of the human embryo is on top with a beautiful spectrum of blue color as you will see. The long tentacles are almost black but start to shrivel up as soon as they are washed up on shore. What is absolutely fascinating in this video is the expulsion of the protoplasm from between these two organisms. It is a lesson in human embryology. Portuguese Man o’ War is not a true jellyfish but a siphonophore. True jelly fish are single organisms but the Man o’ War is a colonial organism made up of 2 specialized individual animals of the same species called zooides or polyps. These individual polyps are attached to one another and physiologically integrated as they cannot survive independently. This creates a symbiotic relationship requiring each polyp to work together and function like an individual animal.