This is a Portuguese man o’ war waiting for a fish to eat

Today I want to write about one of the most incredible and interesting animals in the world.

Here are five interesting facts about them:

1. Portuguese man o’ wars have a gas bladder that floats on top of the water and grows up to 30 cm across and long tentacles that can grow up to 50 metres long.
2. These strange animals look like a jellyfish, but aren’t.  In fact, they are a group of four different polyps that rely on each other for survival.  They get their name from the crest on top of their float that looks a bit like an old battleship.
3. These use their long poisonous tentacles to catch fish to eat.  These stings are very painful and can still cause pain a few hours after washing up on the shore.
4. Some fish are immune to the sting, including clownfish, shepherd fish and yellow jacks, which means that they can hide among the tentacles from predators.  Loggerhead sea turtles eat Portuguese man o’ wars and their skin is too thick for the stings to hurt them.
5. Portuguese man o’ wars are found in groups of up to 1000 in the open ocean in tropical and subtropical areas.

I hope that you found these facts interesting and learned something new.

Are there any other interesting facts that you would like to share about Portuguese man o’ wars?