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Kōrero: Corals, anemones and jellyfish

Washed-up Portuguese men-of-war

Legs of man next to group of blue jellyfish on beach
These freshly stranded Portuguese men-of-war or bluebottles (Physalia physalis) can give a nasty sting to the unsuspecting beachcomber. These extraordinary creatures are actually a collection of thousands of individuals, which have all budded off one parent. Each member making up a mature Portuguese man-of-war performs a particular role, such as feeding, defence, reproduction, or contributing to the colony’s buoyancy. Portuguese men-of-war are at home on the open ocean, floating in surface waters at the mercy of currents and tides.

The term ‘bluebottle’ has a different meaning in New Zealand than elsewhere, much to the relief of Lisa Woolsey, as she describes below.

Soon after we emigrated from England in 1987, friends asked us to stay at their bach at Whangamatā Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula. The possibility of going to the beach on Christmas Day was too hard for us Poms to resist.

The weather before Christmas had been unsettled, with storms along the east coast. As we walked along the beach our friends warned us about ‘bluebottles’. A local child had been taken to hospital from this very beach with bad stings from a bluebottle.

We were horrified: in England a bluebottle is a housefly. We wondered what on earth the flies in New Zealand must be like if they could put a child in hospital! It took us some time to work out that bluebottles in New Zealand are jellyfish. What a relief!

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

exploretheabyss.com

by Peter Batson

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Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Dennis Gordon, Corals, anemones and jellyfish – Hydroids and siphonophores, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/photograph/4737/washed-up-portuguese-men-of-war (accessed 5 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Dennis Gordon, i tāngia i te 2 March 2009, updated 26 September 2016.

Comments

simon c
22 January 2014
The Portuguese man o' war also known as the Portuguese man-of-war, Man-Of-War, or bluebottle, though often mistaken as a jellyfish, is a marine cnidarian of the family Physaliidae.