Portuguese man o' war and a diver Painting

The Portuguese man o' war (Physalia physalis), also known as bluebottle, is a marine animal found in the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean. It has numerous microscopic venomous cnidocytes which deliver a painful sting powerful enough to kill fish, and even, in some cases, humans. Although it superficially resembles a jellyfish, the Portuguese man o' war is in fact a siphonophore. Like all siphonophores, it is a colonial organism, made up of many smaller units called zooids.Although they are morphologically quite different, all of the zooids in a single specimen are genetically identical. These different types of zooids fulfill specialized functions such as hunting, digestion and reproduction, and together they allow the colony to operate as a single individual.