Besides this means of defence, an acrid secretion, which is spread over its body, causes a sharp, stinging sensation, similar to that produced by the
Physalia, or Portuguese man-of-war.
Bluebottle (
Physalia utriculus) colonies appear like blue-tinged sacs which measure up to 15cm (6 inches) long.
Hualien County Bureau of Agriculture Director-General of the bureau Lo Wen-lung said that upon inspection of the photos in this case, the specimens are likely the smaller, less venomous blue bottle or Indo-Pacific Portuguese Man o' War (
physalia utriculus), as opposed to the larger, more lethal Portuguese Man o' War (
Physalia physalis), reported China Times.
Belonging to the genus
Physalia physalis, the marine creature is known for its floating habit and sharp sting that can cause harm to animals and humans.
The most common species seen across coastal India are Aurelia and
Physalia. [1] Chrysaora spp.
In Portuguese, caravela-portuguesa 'Portuguese man o' war' (
Physalia physalis) designates a marine cnidarian, although its constituents are caravela 'caravel' and Portuguesa (feminine of 'Portuguese').
A caution could have been included regarding handling aeolids, particularly Glaucus species likely to be found washed ashore, as the concentrated nematocysts can give people a sting more painful than man-of-war
Physalia species (Rudman 1998).
Portuguese Man o' ' War (
Physalia physalis) is popularly called a jellyfish, but it's not.
Intracellular recordings from single cnidocytes in the tentacles of
Physalia (Purcell and Anderson, 1995) and Cladonema (Price and Anderson, 2006) revealed bursts of synaptically-driven electrical activity in cnidocytes after perfusion of the tentacle with prey-specific chemical extracts.
