EVERY NOW AND THEN, WHEN THE WIND direction and ocean currents align, we get a late summer silly season - the press comes alive with sensational stories of giant killer jellyfish invading our shores. Physalia physalis is a killer of sorts but despite its appearance it isn't really a jellyfish. It is a fascinating and bizarre organism better known as the Portuguese man 'o war and it belongs to a strange group of animals called siphonophores - you are entering a realm where the singular and the plural become as tangled as their tentacles!
Siphonophores are related to the true jellyfish, corals and sea anemones but are more than one animal: they are a colony. Most of the world's species occur as deepwater pelagic ocean drifters - transparent, diaphanous and delicate, they go unnoticed by most folk other than divers.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der August 2023-Ausgabe von BBC Wildlife.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der August 2023-Ausgabe von BBC Wildlife.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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