What type of jellyfish is this? And is the sting bad? Ilhéus, Bahia – Brazil
Thursday, 13 Mar 2025
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Portuguese Man-O-War or something closely related. If memory serves, stings are pretty bad, sometimes deadly. Do not touch.
Portuguese Man O’war, it’s a siphonophore, not technically a jellyfish. They’re very odd things. And yes the sting is bad, still capable of stinging even after the animal appears dead.
Portuguese man o’ war
Portuguese man o’war. Yes – very painful, very slight possibility of death. Actually not a jellyfish though, not at all – it’s a Siphonophore, a colonial organism made up of many genetically identical individual zooids. It also stays on the surface, unlike jellyfish – the inflated part keeps it there and lets it sail with the winds, hence the name.
That, my dear, is the most vicious thing on the high seas still associated with Portugal….
NOT fren
I’ve been stung by those before, just once, still have scars. Bloody bugger went across my thighs when I was a young child in a neck deep water channel between sandbars. My father’s work friend was closest, so I screamed, climbing up his back, like a rabid monkey. This caused the tentacles on me to smear onto my dad’s friend’s back and shoulders, making him scream as well.
Vinegar saved both our rumps. A restaurant right on the water dosed towels in vinegar and covered us. It kills the stinging cells I guess, I just remember the relief I felt. HUGE red welts formed really fast, and after some healing time silvery scars formed that I still have some of. I must admit most of them have faded over the last 60ish years.
I still, to this day, don’t swim in salt water.
(Portuguese ManofWar)
ETA: After a quick chat with my sister who was also there, I seem to have forgotten a step in the treatment, she said after they used the vinegar towels, they switched to hot-wet towels to stop the stinging cells? (Been a while and I was really young.)
Portuguese Man O’ War. i got stung by one of these as a kid after i dove through it. i was on one of those floating trampolines, and when i dove off after my mother called for me i felt a tendril wrap around my arm and i pulled it off.
the sting hurt, sure, but the worst part was the following 24 hours. my arm ballooned up, i had to take an oatmeal bath, and i couldn’t sleep with any clothes on because i was itchy all over and any fabric touching my arm/skin felt like sandpaper.
they’re quite beautiful creatures but, holy hell, do they pack a punch. apparently, pulling off a couple tentacles when swimming away may have killed it. not my intention, but fuck what a lousy vacation it turned out to be after that.
In Australia we call these ‘blue bottles’ , and consider the sting annoying (enough to make kids cry) but not bad (like make you drop dead) in the scheme of Australian sea stinging things.
And yes if you get a strong onshore wind you can see hundreds of them blown up on the beach.
Portuguese Man of War. Do not touch. Venom is deadly to someone with a weak heart. I saw a kid step on on a tendril once in Florida. Sadly he died a short time later of anaphylaxis. Screamed in pain till he didn’t. Scared me to death.
Do they get more pink/purple down south? They’re washing up on the gulf now also, and they all look more aqua blue with maybe some violet in the polyps, tentacles, and along the crest. They really are beautiful to *look* at.
Yes, the stings hurt. I was a dumb child and popping man-o-wars that washed up on shore. Popped one and the stinger flew up and hit my hand. Tried to whipe it off like an idiot and just stung my other hand. Pain traveled up my arms and into my chest. Sill remember the pain from roughly 22 years ago.
Got stung by one in florida when I was like 5, call it the lost summer cause I don’t remember crap from that summer.
In nature, shiny colors = death (or at least a lot of pain)
1. It’s a siphonophore rather than a jellyfish (a weird but very cool type of colonial organism)
2. It’s a Portuguese Man-o-war
3. Yes, the sting is REALLY bad. Do not touch!
If it’s washed up on the beach and there are no seagull footprints around it, I stay back.
The Portuguese man o’ war is a siphonophore, not a jellyfish, and is found in warm waters around the world. Although it can be harmful, it plays an important role in the marine ecosystem by keeping fish populations in check and recycling nutrients.
The Portuguese man o’ war is a colony of organisms that work together as a single animal:
* made up of four types of polyps, each with a specialized role:
* **Pneumatophore**: The float, which is gas-filled and sits on the surface of the ocean. It can be up to 15 cm above the water and is usually translucent, but can also be tinged with pink, purple, or blue.
* **Dactylozooids**: The defensive tentacles that capture prey.
* **Gastrozooids**: The feeding tentacles.
* **Gonozooids**: The reproductive polyps.
That’s a hospital visit my guy
Portuguese man o’ war
Man o war. I got stung once. Extremely painful.
Yeah, these guys are nasty. One’s tentacle wrapped around my finger when I was a kid and my whole arm hurt up to my shoulder pretty badly for a while.
I live in Cocoa Beach. We get these here, too. We grab them by the bell (the purple bubble thing) and throw them back in the water.
It’s wild to me just how many people in the comment thread have been hit by these things and experienced their sting.
I’ve been hit by several different jellyfish/stinging type marine wildlife. Probably all of those were no where near what these things are capable of, and I still dealt with substantial pain from the others; even if it was just 20-30 minutes
I got stung by a Manowar in florida a few years back and HOLY SH*T! It was like someone took a frying pan that just came out of the oven at 500° and stuck it on my side. Excruciating pain, 10/10 don’t recommend.
Do not touch the tendrils. My three year old daughter and I were stung by a man o’war. I will never get her screams out of my head, nor will I ever forget the pain. They have a neurotoxin that can create significant cardiac pain as well as the localized pain that simply shrieks ‘Help me! Help me!’ Simply put- Stay Away.
I’ve been stung many times surfing by these man o wars. It hurts bad, kinda like a lot of bee stings in a row were the stingers got dragged along my skin. but I usually will keep some vinegar in the car and that seems to completely and immediately stop the stinging. This is with some combo of scraping a credit card on the affected skin has worked for me every time. Doesn’t hurt so bad to stop me from surfing tho
Touched one accidentally while swimming once. Literally 1 cm of tentacle grazed my shoulder. It was on FIRE and I became dizzy and disoriented and vomited a bunch. There were so many on the beach that day and my wife suggested we step one one to “pop” it, thinking it was exotic seaweed 😂🤦 I’m so glad we didn’t. They were all over in the water like balloons and several folks were swimming. The lifeguard didn’t say anything or know what they were either when I was injured. Glad you’re okay!!!!
Fun fact about the Man O’ War, egg fertilization has never been witnessed in the wild, so we are not sure at what depths it actually occurs. Each colony of zooids that make up the man o’ war are either entirely male or entirely female, and the colony is genetically identical.
Portuguese man of war – stings are super super painful but rarely deadly
Portuguese man o war. Don’t go near it.
Do an image search of the scars they leave. Pretty intense
Went to the beach for the first time in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina and the beach was also littered with these. I had no clue what they could possibly be but kept picking them up with a beach shovel and throwing them back into the water. You can imagine I was in awe when I found out what they were.
My friend was stung by one of these and died. Be very very careful.
So, one night after some drinking, we thought it would be fun to swim in the ocean. We were right next to a bridge that had ocean on one side and Gulf of Mexico on the other. We were jumping off our roofs into the canal, when I first felt one. I sounded the alarm to everyone – get out!!! I managed to get out relatively safe, a couple of welts. My friend ended up in the hospital due to a reaction. These are not a joke , and the tentacles spread far and wide. Stay away, keep your children away, and your pets.
25 foot tentacles like streamers be careful very poisonous
Portuguese Man of War
Simple answer is it isn’t one.
Better answer is that little fucker is named after a war ship for a reason. The man o war does more than hurt.
Man o war DO NOT ENGAGE
Physalia physalis. It’s not a jellyfish. It has numerous microscopic venomous cnidocytes that deliver a painful sting powerful enough to kill fish and even, in some cases, humans. Detached tentacles and dead specimens (including those that wash up on shore) can sting just as painfully as those of the live organism in the water and may remain potent for hours or even days (possibly multiple weeks) after the death of the organism or the detachment of the tentacle.
Portuguese man-o-war.
Do not touch. Inform authorities if beach is indeed littered with them. The stings remain even after death. They hurt. Like, *really* hurt.
Warn people around with children/pets.
Yeah but…How does it taste?
Em português chamam de Caravela. Aqui no Br, digo.
Caravela Portuguesa. Extremamente venenoso, não acho q um “tentáculo” só seja letal, mas tocar em vários pode causar problemas sérios de no mínimo média duração, coisa de mais de um dia. Não é uma água-viva, mas é “relacionado” a elas. A caravela portuguesa é na verdade uma colônia de indivíduos, cada tentáculo é um indivíduo e a “bóia” um outro. Não recomendo mexer, mas caso queira/precise a bóia é inofensiva e pode ser usada para carregá-la, mas repito, não recomendo, o veneno pode não ser letal em poucas doses mas dói muito.