Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey, brain Stuff
Speaker 1: Florin vogel mom here. Don't ignore purple flags at the beach.
Speaker 1: When American lifeguards fly them, it's because potentially dangerous sea
Speaker 1: creatures have appeared in the water. Maybe there's a gang
Speaker 1: of jellyfish close by, or perhaps some stingrays are on
Speaker 1: the move. But a purple flag can also signal the
Speaker 1: arrival of a much weirder life form, Physalia physalis, a
Speaker 1: venomous drifter with a mean sting, commonly known as the
Speaker 1: Portuguese man o war. The Portuguese man o war is
Speaker 1: partially transparent, a black suspine, and kills prey with stinging tentacles.
Speaker 1: You might mistake it for a jellyfish, but it's not.
Speaker 1: A jellyfish is a singular animal, just like you were
Speaker 1: me hypothetically. On the other hand, every Portuguese man o
Speaker 1: war is a floating colony made up of smaller, genetically
Speaker 1: identical entities that each develop from a single fertilized egg
Speaker 1: and have different functions, but all live and work in concert.
Speaker 1: Portuguese men of war are a type of colonial animal
Speaker 1: called a siphonophore. There are about one hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: five known species of siphonophores, all of which are colonies
Speaker 1: of zooids. Hundreds or even thousands of zooids might make
Speaker 1: up the colony for the article. This episode is based
Speaker 1: on how stuff Works spoke by email with biologist Patriona Monro.
Speaker 1: She said that from an evolutionary standpoint, these bodies are
Speaker 1: similar quote to free living individuals, but the colony itself
Speaker 1: functions as an individual and the bodies or units within
Speaker 1: the colony do not. A Portuguese man o war is
Speaker 1: comprised of a few different types of zooids with different functions.
Speaker 1: Some of them, the gastrozooids, break down food for the colony.
Speaker 1: That food is captured in the first place by the
Speaker 1: grasping tentacle like dactyl zooids. Another important player is the pneumataphore,
Speaker 1: a gas filled flotation bladder. And let's not forget about
Speaker 1: the procreation specialists. Human beings might not have too many
Speaker 1: things biologically in common with Portuguese meno war, yet they,
Speaker 1: like us, reproduce sexually. Every colony produces sperm cells or
Speaker 1: egg cells, but not both. Houstuffworks also spoke via email
Speaker 1: with Paul Bologna of Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey.
Speaker 1: He explained that during the Portuguese man of war's reproductive seasons,
Speaker 1: colonies shed their sex cells out into the water. When
Speaker 1: a sperm meets and fertilizes an egg, a new colony
Speaker 1: starts growing. Bologna said, these cells begin to divide and
Speaker 1: develop in the water column. As the individual grows, new
Speaker 1: zooids clones within the colony are generated. As the early
Speaker 1: colony develops, the noumatophoor expands and fills with air, which
Speaker 1: brings it to the surface, where final development and growth occurs. Basically,
Speaker 1: it's have pneumataphor will travel once inflated. This specialty air
Speaker 1: sack kind of resembles a deformed party balloon. It's how
Speaker 1: the colony gets around. Unlike octopuses or true jellyfish, Portuguese
Speaker 1: men of war can't actively swim. The species must instead
Speaker 1: rely on its bloated pneumataphor, which pokes out above the
Speaker 1: surface of the water and catches the wind like a
Speaker 1: ship's sail, propelling the whole colony forward. That's how the
Speaker 1: Portuguese man o war got its name. By the way,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have anything to do with geography or any
Speaker 1: other particular connection to Portugal, or rather, the critter's distinctive
Speaker 1: sailing mechanism reminded people of the shapes of fifteenth century
Speaker 1: Portuguese warships. Each man of war colony is actually considered
Speaker 1: either right handed or left handed, depending on how that
Speaker 1: noumatophor structure is oriented relative to the colony's tentacles that
Speaker 1: rest below the water's surface. When a left handed colony
Speaker 1: is pushed by the wind, it naturally moves to the right.
Speaker 1: Right handed ones are driven towards the left. Tropical waters
Speaker 1: are the usual domain of this species, but pay heed
Speaker 1: every so often winds and currents sweet men of war
Speaker 1: into more temperate places, Bologna said. In the Northern Atlantic Ocean,
Speaker 1: Portuguese meta war often get carried north with the Gulf
Speaker 1: Stream current off the coast of the United States, so
Speaker 1: it's common to see them wash up on beaches from
Speaker 1: South Carolina to Maine. Additionally, the Gulf Stream continues across
Speaker 1: the Atlantic, so they wash up along the coast of
Speaker 1: England and northern European countries quite frequently. Over in the
Speaker 1: Indo Pacific, there's a smaller but otherwise similar lookings iphonophor
Speaker 1: called the blue bottle. There's been some debate about whether
Speaker 1: or not it belongs to the same species as the
Speaker 1: man of war. In the man of War, Beneath the
Speaker 1: floating balloon lies network of tentacles capable of measuring thirty
Speaker 1: feet or nine meters long, or even upward of one
Speaker 1: hundred feet around thirty meters long. They're loaded with the
Speaker 1: invertebrates not so secret weapon stinging cells bologna explained. Within
Speaker 1: each of these cells is a harpoon like structure or
Speaker 1: organelle called a nomaticist, whose function is to release and
Speaker 1: penetrate the skin of another organism and then release its
Speaker 1: cocktail of venoms. That's because metal war are carnivorous. These
Speaker 1: injections can paralyze fish, crustaceans, and other small animals so
Speaker 1: that the colony can eat them. Human beings aren't on
Speaker 1: the menu, but beach goers should still keep their distance.
Speaker 1: The sting of a Portuguese man o war can trigger
Speaker 1: agonizing skin pain. Other symptoms might include abdominal pain, vomiting, headaches,
Speaker 1: and diarrhea. Human fatalities are rare, but not unheard of.
Speaker 1: That's why you should beware of a man of war
Speaker 1: floating in open water, those long ten ol can wrap
Speaker 1: around you and discharge a dangerous number of stinging cells.
Speaker 1: Beached men of war can sting you two, so don't
Speaker 1: touch one if you ever see one lying on the
Speaker 1: sand should you get stung, though, researchers have a few tips,
Speaker 1: and no, none of them involve urine. How stuff works,
Speaker 1: also spoke i email angel Jaanagahara from the University of
Speaker 1: Hawaii at Manoa, who was part of a team the
Speaker 1: compared different treatment strategies for stings in a twenty seventeen study.
Speaker 1: As she said, a first aid for the man of
Speaker 1: war is a bit controversial. Vinegar is generally recommended as
Speaker 1: a first step to prevent additional discharge of nomaticists left
Speaker 1: on the skin. So what's step number two? Your most
Speaker 1: practical option might be to immerse the affected area in
Speaker 1: skin safe hot water, or apply a hot pack with
Speaker 1: a temperature of one hundred and seven to one hundred
Speaker 1: and thirteen degrees fahrenheit that's forty two to forty five
Speaker 1: degrees celsius. Keep it on for thirty two to forty
Speaker 1: five minutes. The heat will inactivate some of the venom
Speaker 1: compounds causing the pain. However, the team's research did show
Speaker 1: that if you have access to it, applying Sting No
Speaker 1: More spray followed by Sting No More cream has even
Speaker 1: better and faster results than treatment with heat. One thing
Speaker 1: you definitely should not do is pee on the injury.
Speaker 1: Urine is sometimes touted as a folk remedy for jellyfish
Speaker 1: and Portuguese man o war stings. A nineteen ninety seven
Speaker 1: episode of the sitcom Friends popularized this idea, and don't
Speaker 1: buy it. Yanagahara said, scientific studies have not shown that
Speaker 1: urine reduces venom activity or tissue damage. Today's episode is
Speaker 1: based on the article the Portuguese Man of War is
Speaker 1: not a Jellyfish and packs a nasty sting on HowStuffWorks
Speaker 1: dot Com, written by Mark Mancini. Brain Stuff is production
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Speaker 1: is produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
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