What beautiful animals. I’ve read about Velella, but it’s always seemed to me like an under-studied and under-photographed cnidarian. I have a book about jellyfish, but Velella is only drawn–and I think it’s hard for pictures to capture just how interesting it is. The Portuguese man-o’-war, which is much more likely to sting humans, hogs the spotlight.
It is unlike a traditional jellyfish (medusa), but rather like the benthic stage of a hydroid.
I bet that’s the secret. I have no idea what it means. It’s one of those loopy curves from trig class, right?
Medusi? (Okay, the text refers to medusae, but the narrator consistently refers to medusi.) Why?
Something I think is kind of interesting is that while many of the animals are blue, it happens in different ways. There are different pigments in even by-the-wind sailors and man-o’-wars.
Not everyone pronounces Latin the same way, but in English there’s a traditional version where you anglicize single vowels, and only say the second part of most double vowels. That’s how you get the “aye” in words like alumni and the long “ee” in words like phoenix or Caesar, in reverse of the classical sounds.
The bloke from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute is called Steve Haddock ? Fantastic!
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