#4964 · 🪼 jellyfish, starfish, worms & co
Portuguese Man o' War
🇳🇱 Portugees oorlogsschip ·Physalia physalis
7 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
The Atlantic Portuguese man o' war ( Physalia physalis ), also known as the man-of-war , or floating terror , is a marine hydrozoan of the family Physaliidae found in the Atlantic Ocean, as well as the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Its venomous tentacles deliver a painful sting, which on extremely rare occasions has been fatal to humans. Despite its outward appearance, the Portuguese man o' war is not a jellyfish but a siphonophore, which, unlike jellyfish, is not a...
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- No confirmed wild sightings in the Netherlands on iNaturalist: you'd have to travel for this one.
- 12,036 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named in 1758 (268 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Portuguese Man o' War
- Nederlands
- Portugees oorlogsschip
- scientific name
- Physalia physalis
- class
- Hydrozoa
- order
- Siphonophorae
- family
- Physaliidae
- sightings in NL
- 0
- sightings in Europe
- 2,187
- sightings worldwide
- 12,036
- GBIF records in NL
- 1
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1758
relatives· Physaliidae
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 117302, Wikidata Q202526, GBIF 2264734, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.