Jellyfish and Man-of-War

Jellyfish are simple animals. They have a soft, transparent, bell-shaped body. Tentacles grow out form the edges of their body.

Stinging Cells

Jellyfish have stinging cells on their tentacles, which provide them with protection and help them gather food. When the tentacles come into contact with a prey, the stinging cells inject the poison into it.

Portuguese Man-of-War

The Portuguese man-of-war is not a jellyfish. It is a colony of actually a organisms with a gas filled float. The float is purple-blue in color. Long tentacles hang out from the float. The tentacles are about 9 to 18 meters (about 30 t0 60 feet) long. Portuguese man-of-war use there poisonous tentacles to kill prey such as fish and other small animals and draw them to the float.

Australian Box Jellyfish

The Australian Jellyfish is the most poisonous jellyfish. It has 15 tentacles growing form each corner. Each tentacle reaches to a length of three meters (about 10 feet) and has 5,000 stinging cells. A box jellyfish stings its prey and it towards the mouth inside its body.

No Tentacles

Some jellyfish  , such as the cannonball jellyfish and the mushroom jellyfish, do not have tentacles. Cannonball jellyfish have round, white bells bordered with a brown or purple color.

10:20 AM