Portuguese Man-of-War

-
.
Portuguese Man-of-War
The Portuguese man-of-war is actually a colony of specialized polyps that all contribute to the well being of the colony by performing specific tasks, such as feeding or providing buoyancy control. The man-of-war has a relatively large, gas-filled bladder that provides flotation for the entire colony. A large collection of feeding polyps suspended from the underside of the float, each with a single, long tentacle, captures and digests food, which is then shared with the entire colony by means of interconnecting digestive cavities. Although the Portuguese man-of-war resembles a jellyfish, it belongs to Class Hydrozoa in the phylum Cnidaria, while true jellyfish belong to Class Scyphozoa in the same phylum.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Animal Kingdom

-
Image
. Kingdom Animalia includes more than one million living species, grouped into more than 30 phyla. Vertebrates, members of the phylum Chordata, comprise only one percent of these organisms. Phylum Arthropoda is more successful in sheer numbers, total mass, and distribution than all other groups of animals combined. The remaining animal phyla are composed of mostly marine-dwelling organisms. THE MAJOR PHYLA : Acanthocephala (Spiny-Headed Worm) Annelida (Annelids) Arthropoda (Arthropods)-> subphyla: Chelicerata, Crustacea, and Unirama Brachiopoda (Lampshell) Chaetognatha (Arrowworm) Chordata (Chordates)-> subphyla: Cephalochordata, Tunicata , Vertebrata ( fishes , amphibians , reptiles , birds , and mammals ) Cnidaria (Cnidarians) Ctenophora (Comb Jellies) Cycliophora (Symbion) Echinodermata (Echinoderms)-> Subphyla: Pelmatozoa, Eleutherozoa Echiura (Spoonworm) Ectoprocta (Moss Animals) or Bryozoa Entoprocta (Entoprocts) Gastrotricha (Gastrotrich) Gnathostomulida ...
Read more

Cattle

-
Cattle, name for the ruminant mammals of the genus Bos, and particularly those of the domesticated species, Bos taurus and B. indica. The term oxen, broadly used, refers also to closely related animals, such as the buffalo and the bison. Narrowly used, ox refers to a mature castrated male used for draft purposes. In referring to domestic cattle a grown male is a bull, a grown female a cow, an infant a calf, and an animal between one and two years old a yearling. A female that has not given birth is a heifer; a castrated male is a steer. Most cattle have unbranched horns consisting of a horny layer surrounding a bone extension of the skull; these horns, unlike those of deer, are not shed. Some cattle are naturally hornless. Western, or European, domestic cattle (Bos taurus) are thought to be descended mainly from the aurochs, a large European wild ox domesticated during the Stone Age, extinct since 1627. A smaller species, the Celtic shorthorn, was the most important domestic ox of t...
Read more

Chimpanzee

-
Chimpanzee, an ape, genus Pan, of the equatorial forests of central and W Africa. The common chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes, lives N of the Congo River. Full-grown animals of this species are up to 5 ft (1.5 m) tall and weigh about 150 lb (68 kg); they have an arm spread of up to 9 ft (2.7 m) and are much stronger than humans. They are covered with long, black hair over most of the body and have naked faces ranging in color from nearly white to nearly black. The pygmy chimpanzee, P. paniscus, now usually called the bonobo, lives south of the Congo. It is a bit smaller and more slenderly built, with a black face. Chimpanzees spend much time on the ground, where they walk on all fours, using the soles of the feet and the knuckles of the hands; they can also stand on two legs and sometimes walk this way for short distances. They climb trees in pursuit of food and for nesting and can swing by their hands from branch to branch. Their diet consists largely of fruit and other plant matter, but ...
Read more