Portuguese Man o' War: An Organism Made of Organisms? 

what makes you think my body parts can't survive on their own? I threw my kidney in the forest and it brought me the head of an elephant.

When I was about 6, I was playing in the waves in Baja California (ironically located in Mexico). My parents marveled at how we were the only people on the beach (cue ominous music). I saw what looked to be a piece of brightly colored plastic floating nearby, and being young and unaware that everything in the ocean is out to kill you, I reached out and grabbed it. I don't remember screaming (though I'm sure I did), but my parents came over and saw the long stinging ropes entwined around my tiny hands and working their way into my skin. "That shouldn't be!", they said. I agreed. Exiting the water, we went up to the manager's office at the place we were staying. He shook his head and wondered why we were in the water during Portuguese Man o' War season (the reason the beach was empty, but no one had bothered to mention to us). "Do you want us to try to sober up the doctor?", he asked. It was before noon. "No.", said my parents, thinking that it might be more risky than letting nature have its way with me. So my father took a pair of pliers and carefully pulled the barbed strings out of my 6 year-old hands. I do remember screaming at that point. Clearly. Around this time, my armpits started to hurt. My mother (a medical professional) recognized this as poison reaching my lymph nodes, and proceeded to lose her mind. It would take hours to drive back to the border, so basically, it was up to me to live or die (cue heroic montage). Spoiler alert: I lived - and more importantly: I learned. I learned that if none of the locals are on the beach, stay the 'f' out of the water. I learned that if you grab something in the ocean, you will regret it. I learned that sometimes doctors aren't the best solution. I learned that there are far worse things than getting stung by a bee (unless you're allergic to bee stings, which I'm not). Finally, I learned not to be so trusting about my parent's vacation planning abilities. In a way, I think we all have a Portuguese Man o' War out there waiting for us. It may be your boss, your spouse, your neighbor, or someone yet unknown to you. Whatever you do, don't try to grab them, unless your dad is around with a good set of pliers... :)

What kind of name is a Portuguese Man o' War? It's not even a human EDIT:- And it's not even Portuguese

This is just like a single organism but with extra steps.

WE ARE BORG YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. JOIN THE COLLECTIVE.

so its like the power rangers coming together to make a big power ranger robot

how the hell I am 30 years old and I've never seen or heard anything even remotely similar to this? Have I somehow landed in a parallel universe overnight?

In 2012 I wrote an article for Listverse about fascinating animals which included the siphonophore. The wiki page for them was a single 3 line paragraph back then. I was downloading PDF's from college websites just for snippets. Google translate and a Japanese page gave me a little more. It was the only info I had available, and I hope I did them justice. Part of me shamelessly hopes that I can take some credit for the fact that more people know about them now, myself included. If only that I inspired those more qualified to research and talk about them as well. Thank you so much for this video. :)

So... Portuguese Man O' War is a perfect organism town?All the different zooids have their own families that master their crafts, and rely on others in perfect harmony.

So you're saying it's a zooid-berg?

it's called Voltronism or Power-Rangerism

It's like Cell Lab in real life.

"Probably don't touch it because _bzzzt_" Thanks, SciShow.

Still waiting for a Poison/Psychic legendary Pokemon based off this thing. :

Thank you so much for this video! Siphonophore are one of my favorite creatures, in fact, one of the reasons I want to be a marine biologist! I hope someday we can learn even more about them!

I like how the pause/play button fits perfectly in the centre of the atom during the intro

I clicked this video to look at the man o war. Woulda been nice to show more Man o war footage/pictures.

We portuguese get really excited when we see our small country pop up in things like this. I have an huge adrenaline rush atm.

His ears. Can't stop watching them. They wiggle, back and to.

Oh lord, his warning at the end... priceless! 😂🤣

So they're like the United Kingdom of organisms? One country made up of other countries?

Say Zooid one more time, I dare you

kinda makes me think of bowser's inside story where a lot of the cells have their own individual conciousness separate from the whole

I'm going to say this. after watching both Blue Earth's video and this. Portuguese Man o' war: KILL IT WITH FIRE!

What i heard in this episode: Zooid, Zooid Zooid Zooid, ZooidZooid Zooid, ZooidZooidZooidZooid, Zooid.

How many times he said Zooid?

”Is it a colony or a single organism?” Yes

Have been trying to study for my biology course and have been having a hard time wrapping my head around these. Pretty convenient time to have this suggested, thanks SciShow!

I think these things might be individual organisms that are attached to each other that also have a hive mind. One but many. Assimilate. Resistance is futile.

Do they combine to make a Mega-Zoid? And those then further combine to make a Giga-Zoid?

I read a story a long time ago that talked about the manowar, and they described it as being lethal even to adults. They talked about the tentacles being able to both apply powerful electric shocks and deliver deadly neurotoxin via the barbs. It also talked about the tentacles being able to break off from the main organism and continue pumping poison from the attached sac and continue shocks with an organic battery into the victim, and that you have to dig the barbs out to stop the process.

The bro to nerdy info ratio of this guy is bewildering.

So this is what the ocean thinks of fusion..

Anyone else expecting a power ranger megazord joke to come up on the video?

Now I want a video of a portuguese man o' war with "Man o' War" music.

This is how complex organisms evolved. Individual organisms came together into one and evolved. Interesting stuff

my favority zooid is liger. gotta love that plasma blade.

am i the only one who sees these things as some sort of transitional stage from a colony of cells to an animal?

I remember seeing one while canoeing as a Cub Scout in Hawaii, thankfully I knew what it was and decided it would be best to get as far away as possible from it since I had read about it in a book and was immediately wary of it.

I wish you used more images to describe what you are talking about. I'm very visual so having individual images of what exactly you're explaining would be super awesome. Especially because this creature sounds super cool, but complex (at least in my imagination). Either way, I love the information the team presents!! thank you for that!!

Because... *bzzt*

Siphonophore = Individual Zooid = Community Portuguese Man o' War = Society

Thanks for the breakdown!!

Thanks for this video. I just learned something new.

I'd probably classify it as a single organism... although each zooid is an independent unit, they function more like organs then true organisms... sorta like how a sponge is barely an animal, the siphonophores are clearly living fossil examples of early attempts at multicellular organisms with specialized tissues, which itself probably immerged from a colony of organisms that evolved to work together, and co-evolved into one organism, similar to the Eukaryotic Cell with the Mitochondria

So, they're like a city.

Portuguesse man of war - literally a single living battleship

I've done some googling, and theese abominations look like they came straight out of the lovecraftian mythos

I'd like to see a TV show called 'Scientists debate' Where different groups of scientists try to prove why their theory is correct. That would be interesting, no?

COMMUNISM IN MY JELLYFISH!! NOOOO!

"Beyond the lair" A.k.A exotic lair literally touched it

I REMEMBER WATCHING A SHOW ABOUT THESE THINGS A YEAR AGO AND I FORGOT THE NAME BUT NOW I FEEL ACCOMPLISHED

Needs more pictures. This is a bit hard to comprehend off of description alone.

Manowar, Manowar, living on the road. When we're in town, speakers explode.

So it's kinda like the evolution of cells working together to eventually become one organism until each cell can't live independently. Although here it's each "zooid" working together to a point that they can't survive on their own...

This seems like a video you would watch in science class

Cool stuff. I've been fascinated by these critters ever since I first heard about them years ago, but this is the best description I've yet heard that explains exactly what makes them so unique.

Reproduce by budding? Why not Zoidberg?

The madlad that gave this thing it's name deserves a medal

Man o' War is the coolest name for an animal or combination of animals.

This video should be a new nutshack/we are number one meme, where every zoid is replaced with something

Siphonophore? You mean the Megazooid. When the red, blue, pink, yellow and black zooids combine to fight the evil monster.

I would really like to see more episodes where there's a photo or video of the things you're talking about on the side etc. I'm a visual learner, and I really like the topics this channel tackles but often times I find myself wanting to leave the video to go see what the thing looks like on another channel's video instead.

lol The weird things you find in the internet! Loved it.

aren't we all just organisms made of organisms?

This is among the coolest things SciShow has ever taught me. I can't remember the last time I was this...astonished by something new I've learned.

I have seen these lots of times and was wondering what it was Thanks

I saw one of these when I went to the beach in Texas lol

They like a transformer, or crystal gem, they can join up with other transformers and get bigger.

Looks like those aliens from Mass Effect.

These things hurt like HELL I actually passed out when I got stung at 7 years old

it's the evolutionary step between a complex animal and a multi-cellular organism

Did each zooid have a unique genetic composition? Does the "organism" have multiple sets of DNA for each part of it? That's a question that was buzzing in my head throughout the video.

So the Man o' War is not just a Magic Card?

I got stung by a "dead" Portuguese Man o' War when I picked up a dried up baby one in the sand on the beach.

*These things are very common in South Padre Island Texas. I see these when I walk on the beach*

Maybe they are a glimpse at the liminal stage of the evolution of single celled organisms and multicellular ones, where evolution proceeded for some organism in this symbiotic relationship to merge them together into a single organism, while other siphonophores did continue evolving and remained unchanged?

It say organisms but I keep reading it " orgasms"

On our vacation found millions of these guys on the beach they were every where

I picked one up off the ground when I was 5 in Port Aransas Texas. I was very stung

I laughed Everytime he said zoid

This reminds me of a great book series I loved when I was young, the Adventure series by Willard Price. In one of them, Diving Adventure, Hal Hunt is stung by a Portuguese Man of War and has to be treated with shaving cream by his brother Roger. That was a great series, alas we do not have the undersea research village envisioned in that book.

That is beyond fascinating

Yea, thought you were talking about he ship when I saw the title and was a bit confused because this is scishow haha

New drinking game! Take a shot whenever he mentions "Zooid" ;)

So the Portuguese Man o War is essentially a group of organisms attached together to function like an animal.

I got stung by one of them when I was a child.. AND IT FREAKING HURT!!! They still look very beautiful

One if the biggest differences between me(an islander) and my boyfriend(who was born/raised on the mainland) I barely think about sharks when I go swimming in the ocean but any strange bubble im terrified might be a box jelly or manowar. Meanwhile, bf is too scurd of sharks to comfortably enjoy the beach...

I bet you Michael can sing. He has a pretty smooth voice.

So you might say they're forming... a megazooid?

Kind of like kelp and slime mold. The interesting thing is how the individual cellular organisms turn into something different for the whole

When only seeing the thumbnail I thought it was a transparent dead bird

Do the different zooids have the same or similar genes?

My brain farts every time you say Zooid. The double 'o' keeps messing with me for some reason

Just when I thought nothing in science could out-weird the quantum eraser experiment... along come the siphonophores.

If limbs moving independently means you're not a single organism, I must become a colony when I've had a few drinks

So this is what the Slug Cruiser type A from FTL is named after…

Please refer Creationists to this video when ask you for a transitional form between single-celled and multi-cellular organisms.

Is this really all that is known about them? It seems like such a fascinating subject and this video is so short!

We call them "Blue Bottles" in oz. The beaches are full of them a few times a year, the sting sucks! the stingers wrap around you so to get them off you get stung more. Usually they will be washed up on shore if its not a good day for a swim...