TOKYO-2019 Nature / Underwater

Deadly Beauty

  • Prize
    Bronze in Nature/Underwater
  • Photographer
    Nuno Vasco Rodrigues
  • Photo Date
    9 June 2019

Most people see it as a jellyfish, but Portuguese Man-of-War is a siphonophore, an animal made up of a colony of organisms working together. It gets its name from the uppermost polyp, a gas-filled bladder, known as pneumatophore, which sits above the water and somewhat resembles an old Portuguese warship at full sail. This one was floating off Faial (Azores) in a beatiful windless day.