Humans often tend to be attracted to the bizarre and beautiful. We associate danger with sharp objects, speed, and associated symbols of peril. The world is full of beautiful and mysterious creatures, especially marine life. When a man was walking along a beach in Brazil, he didn’t think much of the strange, but beautiful creature that he encountered.
The creature he filmed was purple and transparent, slugging slowly along the beach front and resembled a partially deflated balloon. The interesting fellow slowly bumbled along the shore as the man filmed, unknowingly coming just inches away from one poisonous bit of sea life. The creature he encountered is a Portuguese man o’ war.
Man o’ wars resemble a jellyfish but are not a single organism. These beautiful but terrifying creatures are made of many minute organisms, called zooids, coming together to form a colony. The tentacles of the Portuguese man o’ war can be short but often extend to hundreds of feet in length.
These magnificent marine creatures pack a powerful sting, said to cause excruciating pain. Encounters with a man o’ war can be fatal, but not due to the nasty venom it carries. Swimmers that die due to these encounters are usually due to drowning after the victim has become entangled in the man o’ war’s lengthy tentacles.
The Portuguese man o’ war, although an ocean creature, cannot swim or propel. This awestriking creature has a bladder chamber filled with gas, allowing it to float in the ocean, moved along by the wind and tides. The Portuguese man o’ war can be found in oceans across the globe and have been spotted in Australia and Brazil. Their primary habitat is the warm ocean waters in tropical and subtropical regions, but these interesting organisms have been spotted in North Atlantic waters as far north as the state of Maine.
