While it looks like a jellyfish, this is actually a colony of hydrozoan organisms. The Blue Button (Porpita porpita) is a chondrophore - a group of cnidarians living collectively. Specialized individuals serve the role as the float while others serve in specialized rolls including stinging, digestion, and reproduction. This species occasionally makes the news for washing ashore in numbers and stinging bathers but their sting is not as bad as that of the related Portuguese Man-O-War. Dorsal and ventral side of the same organism depicted. Scale bar in mm. Photographed in the Gulf of Mexico, July 2018. Netted from the surface waters, less than 1m depth. Image courtesy of the DEEPEND project. | |
Licence : | Droits gérés |
Crédit: | Science Photo Library / Fenolio, Dante |
Taille de l’image : | 4103 px × 2711 px |
Model Release : | Non requis |
Property Release : | Non requis |
Restrictions : | - |