Cottesloe Coastcare Association
  • Home
  • About
    • Our committee
    • Our history
    • Our constitution
  • Our Work
    • Cottesloe Native Garden
    • Dutch Inn
    • Grant Marine Park
    • John Black Dune Park
    • Mudurup
    • Napier Street Dunes
    • Sydney Street
    • Vlamingh
  • Learn
    • Local plants
    • Weeds
    • Flotsam
    • Resources
  • News
  • How to Help
    • Membership
    • Donate
      • Our new Nature Play Space
    • Containers for Change
    • Volunteer
    • School and Corporate Groups
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
You are here: Home1 / Learn2 / Flotsam3 / Jellyfish

Jellyfish

Jellyfish are also cnidarians, like corals, but the jellyfish we are familiar with are usually the free-swimming medusa stage of their life-cycle.

Commonly stranded after a storm is the balloon-like bluebottle (Physalia) which is related to the Portuguese Man-o-War. This is actually a colony, each polyp specialising in a function such as an air bladder or a stinging tentacle. Two disc-shaped jellyfish with hanging tentacles are occasionally found – Velella with its little sail and Porpita without a sail.

Physalia tentacles can sting quite severely, even when dried, but the other two are harmless.

Blue Bottle

Common name

Bluebottle

Scientific name

Physalia physalis

Description

This aptly-named jellyfish is often beached in large numbers after a storm. Surprisingly, a bluebottle is not an individual, but a colony of specialised polyps. Some capture food, some digest the food, some reproduce and one becomes the gas-filled float. The sting is very painful. The local bluebottle is closely related to the Portuguese Man-o-war which occurs in northern Australian waters and overseas.

Cottesloe Coastcare Association

PO Box 32
Cottesloe WA 6911
info@cottesloecoastcare.org

Info for Committee

Sign up to our Newsletters

To stay up to date with our news and upcoming events.

Subscribe

Connect with us

  • Email
  • Facebook
Copyright © 1995-2021 Cottesloe Coastcare Association. All rights reserved.
Scroll to top