Image: Bluebottle Illustration
Description
Bluebottles have a float or bottle-shaped blue sac, which sits on the water's surface. They have many string-like tentacles hanging down from the float.
- Illustrator:
- Andrew Howells
- Rights:
- © Australian Museum
- Common name:
- Bluebottle
- Scientific name:
- Physalia physalis
Additional information
Bluebottles have a float or bottle-shaped blue sac, which sits on the water's surface. They have many string-like tentacles hanging down from the float.
Bluebottles live in the oceans around Australia. They eat fish, small crabs and plankton.
Bluebottles eat using their feeding tentacles. Their mouths get big enough to surround their food. They then break their food into small bits with digestive enzymes.
Sea slugs (nudibranchs), sea turtles and violet snails eat Bluebottles.
Each Bluebottle is actually a colony of individual animals. Each animal has a special role for feeding, reproduction, defence and food capture or as the float for the colony.
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Coastal habitats View full size
Andrew Howells
© Australian Museum
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