National Geographic’s Deadly Beauty

National Geographic’s “Deadly Beauty” feature on Portuguese Man-of-War jellyfish is absolutely stunning. The jellyfish photos and videos captured by Aaron Ansarov show the anatomy of the deadly stingers like I’ve never seen. The whole feature is pretty awesome. In Curaçao, it was common for Man-of-War to take over my favorite beaches. I knew these dudes and dudettes were deadly, but I didn’t know too much about their feeding habits:

Once a man-of-war captures a meal, the tentacle brings its prey to one of several feeding bodies (the brown speckled structures across the center of the image above). Since the “individuals” within the colony are all connected, after a stomach digests the meal, the nutrients get spread throughout the colony.