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That’s really interesting. I’m a SoCal native and have never seen one. The Wikipedia article is really interesting, too.
Each “individual” with its sail is really a hydroid colony, with many polyps that feed on ocean plankton. These are connected by a canal system that enables the colony to share whatever food is ingested by individual polyps. Each by-the-wind sailor is a colony of all-male or all-female polyps. The colony has several different kinds of polyps, some of which are both feeding and reproductive, called gonozooids, and others protective, called dactylozooids.
Nature is whack yo
Cute, tiny, man-o-war.
Very much like a man-o-war, but you can pick it up without being stung badly, which is good because a lot of people think it’s plastic.
Yeah, absolutely don’t mess around with man-o-wars. So this is as big as it gets?
Yup. Here’s a pic at full size. You can see what I mean about people thinking it’s plastic.
Fascinating!
Neat
