Talk:Portuguese man o' war

Someone seems to have changed the first line to read “Japaneseman” — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:3A40:8810:588:5CF4:21E9:E288 (talk) 01:11, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Why they are called Portuguese man of war

Give me answer 2400:ADC5:165:FB00:8558:1D06:4654:3FF9 (talk) 17:20, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

RTFA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_man_o%27_war#Etymology Theturbolemming (talk) 19:11, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

"Coloniality"

The confusing nature of the "coloniality" claim is touched on in other topics of this page. The article currently has this in the eponymous section:

All zooids in a man o' war develop from the same single fertilized egg and are therefore genetically identical; they remain physiologically connected throughout life, and essentially function as organs in a shared body. Hence, a Portuguese man o' war constitutes a single individual from an ecological perspective, but is made up of many individuals from an embryological perspective.

It's not clear how this colony creature is any different any multicellular organism and how zooids are different from cells. There needs to be more explanation of zooids are "many individuals from an embryological perspective". What exactly does that mean?

The first part of the paragraph/section might be supposed to function as an explanation, but the text is pretty opaque:

The man o' war is described as a colonial organism because the individual zooids in a colony are evolutionarily derived from either polyps or medusae, i.e. the two basic body plans of cnidarians. Both of these body plans comprise entire individuals in non-colonial cnidarians (for example, a jellyfish is a medusa; a sea anemone is a polyp).

Reading very carefully, it sounds like there's a similarity between the body plans of different zooids in the PMoW and that of polyps and medusae, which are separate individual creatures. Weak sauce. It sounds like saying, "Well, some of your cells look like this animal, and others of your cells looks like this other animal, so that means you're really a collection of individuals." Resemblance of cells to complete organisms is not really what most people would expect when hearing something is a colony of individuals. The science here can't be that bogus, can it? What's missing from the article?

JKeck (talk) 13:36, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Siphonophore = jellyfish?

Siphonophores are cnidarians with a medusa phase, so it is inaccurate to describe them as an entirely separate thing to jellyfish. They may not be true jellyfish, but neither are box jellies and those are clearly jellyfish. What do you all think? Siphonophore-enthusiast (talk) 13:02, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Certainly it's an unclear term. Invasive Spices (talk) 18:35, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Physalia into Portuguese man o' war

The proposer of this merge is @Jlwoodwa:, and they may provide the reasons for this merge. — CrafterNova ^{[ TALK ] [ CONT ]} 11:18, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Since Physalis is a genus of approximately 75 to 90 flowering plants in the nightshade family, I very much doubt that it is the intended target here. My guess is that Physalia was meant. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:33, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any reason why either Physalis or Physalia should be merged into this article. Mooonswimmer 14:57, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, Physalia is meant, yes, this is a really bad merge proposal, and yes, the article must be merged, because the genus is monotypic - the two species originally recognized have been considered conspecific for the last 17 years. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:09, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Then support merge, per Elmidae – it's a relief that someone (unlike me!) actually knows what they're talking about here. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:43, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

support merge Physalia with Portuguese man o' war in this case (monotypic genus) DiverDave (talk) 02:28, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Also support, monotypic genus, no reason for it to exist Jokullmusic 02:25, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Overview plagarism

The overview section copies directly from the introduction of a cited source without any quotes or attribution. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6820529) Yubbo (talk) 15:52, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

From my understanding, using the exact words of the article, then adding an attrubution at the end still counts as plagarism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copying_text_from_other_sources

states, "As a general rule, do not copy text from other sources. Doing so usually constitutes both a copyright violation and plagiarism." Yubbo (talk) 15:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

@Epipelagic has removed this header with no clear justification: it's not egregious to ask about this, regardless of what the answer is. Removing the header and answering a question like this via user talk and edit summary is borderline unacceptable.

Okay. So I removed Yubbo's unfounded claim and had the following exchange with them on their talk page...

Unfounded accusations of plaigarism are a serious matter. Before you make (repeated) accusations of plagiarism, as you have here, you should check the copyright status and permissions that apply to the article you claim is being plagiarised. — Epipelagic (talk) 20:14, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

This article still says "In most cases, you may not copy text from other sources into Wikipedia. Doing so is a copyright violation. Always write the articles in your own words and cite the sources of the article." These accusations also were founded, because in the link to my accusation of plagiarism, I linked the source that was plagiarized from (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6820529).

It also isn't allowed to make small changes to the original work. "Superficial change of copyright-protected text is not enough. Wikipedia articles must be written in the author's own words. If the way in which a source has said something is important, please employ quotation."

There are still no quotes used, so it is plagiarism. Yubbo (talk) 21:09, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

You are merely quoting from an informal explanatory essay, not a Wikipedia guideline or policy. At least read the rest of the essay before cherry-picking quotes you think support your case. If you look further down the same essay, you will find a section called: Can I copy from open license or public domain sources?. That is the section that applies here. If you want a better grasp of the issues, read the relevant Wikipedia guidelines and policies, and don't cherry pick from essays. Further, you are linking to a copy of the article which is on the website of the National Library of Medicine (USA). The original article in question was published by Nature. — Epipelagic (talk) 23:54, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

In the interests of drama, Remsense has reinstated this issue. They also made a claim, which they have now deleted, that the "offending passages" were not attributed. But these passages ARE attributed. — Epipelagic (talk) 02:14, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Epipelagic, I made an embarrassing error based on misreading the article page: I simply did not see the attribution template the first time, somehow. It was negligence on my part, and I apologize. Remsense留 02:15, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

My recent change:

The American study cited notes both that Nematocytes can be triggered by vinegar, but also contradictorily states vinegar is a treatment for bluebottles (which contain nematocytes), so I left it out. DavidSmith2018 (talk) 23:35, 29 March 2024 (UTC) DavidSmith2018 (talk) 23:35, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

References

Language

This article should be edited for grammar clarity. 96.18.81.230 (talk) 05:53, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Portuguese man o' war/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: ZKevinTheCat (talk · contribs) 19:22, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Jens Lallensack (talk · contribs) 11:33, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

Will review this soon. For a start:

• there is a new, important study just published [1] that needs to be incorporated.
• Make sure everything in the abstract is in the main text, too. The abstract should only summarize, it does not need to have citations.
• Sources 17 and 31; as well as 42 and 44, and 60 and 66 are duplicates.

Fixed. — ZKevinTheCat

• "Animal Diversity Web" has, from my experience, been a quite unreliable source. It is also a tertiary one, just as Wikipedia is, which is not ideal either. Ideally, cite the scholarly literature directly. I am not requesting to eliminate that source completely, but I will put extra scrutiny to that source when I do a source review.

Removed and replaced; rewrote sections as necessary. — ZKevinTheCat

More soon. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 11:33, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

@Jens Lallensack Thanks for starting the review. I may not be able to do to much because I am currently out of town with limited access to the internet. I'll try to do what I can though. ZKevinTheCat (talk) 14:01, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

Understood; I can give you some extra time, no problem. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:47, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

• live in the cold, dark ocean depths where they can only be observed in their natural habitat by a submersible or ROV. – better "live at greater depths, where they can …". Also, submersible needs link, and ROV also needs a link and possibly should be spelt out.

• The "Taxonomy" section lacks a couple of important aspects. Who described the species/genus/family, and under what name originally, based on what specimen? Where does the scientific name come from, where does the common name come from? Who erected Physalia, who erected Physaliidae? How was the animal classified originally?

• On what source is the cladogram based on?

[15]. Fixed text. — ZKevinTheCat

• A sail on the bladder, which may be left or right-handed, propels it about the sea, often in groups. – Confusing sentence and should be re-formulated for clarity. I would add "to catch the wind" for clarity. Why can it be left or right-handed, is it asymmetrical? "often in groups" means it is gregarious? If so, make a separate sentence for that, since it is not really related to the sail.

Stopping here for now. Once the above are addressed, I will have another look, probably with more comments, but hopefully with no major ones anymore. I see that you are not the main author of large parts of the article, so I also have to make sure that you are confident about the source quality (see comment above). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:46, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

I think I've adressed everything up here with my last edit. I updated the taxonomy section and rewrote the lead to match it and your other suggestions. I didn't include the "who named it" stuff because I honestly don't think its necessary and don't know how to include it without it being out of place. There are plenty of articles (including another siphonophore) that don't have that info and still get GA. — ZKevinTheCat

• It seems you didn't address the point about information in the lead that has to be repeated in the body? You do not have the etymology in the article body, for example, it is only in the lead.

Added etymology section. — ZKevinTheCat

• Regarding the new 2025 study: You added a sentence to the Taxonomy section, but the rest of the sections still seems outdated. For example, "making the existence of the species dubious" is the assessment from 2012 and does not necessarily reflect current thinking. I think the section needs to be re-written accordingly.

Removed. — ZKevinTheCat

• Regarding the authority of the first description, well, this is one of the most basic and important things that a Taxonomy section should have. I would simply start the Taxonomy section with a sentence like "The Portuguese man o' war was described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae under the name xxx". I don't know under what name he described it (the author citation in the taxobox is in brackets, indicating that he assigned the species to a different genus, not Physalia, which was only named later, by Lamarck in 1801. All this information is the basics of taxonomic history, and that has always been a key aspect any article has to cover.

Added. — ZKevinTheCat

• Why not mention the species that have been proposed?

This feels unnecessary. Maybe you would want this for FA but that's may past me right now. — ZKevinTheCat

I think we need one additional sentence briefly stating how these species differ. This is information that many readers certainly want to know (e.g., if they find one and want to identify it). It should be easy enough to add? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:11, 6 July 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread your comment; I thought you were talking about proposed species in the past. This info has been added. — ZKevinTheCat

Contraction of tentacles drags the prey upward and into range of the gastrozooids. The gastrozooids surround and digest the food by secreting digestive enzymes. The man o' war typically has multiple stinging tentacles, but a regional form (previously known as a separate species, P. utriculus) has only a single stinging tentacle. – This lacks a source. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:38, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

Removed. I cleaned up some other stuff while I was at it too @Jens Lallensack: ZKevinTheCat (talk) 05:40, 6 July 2025 (UTC) ZKevinTheCat

• The Portuguese man o' war is well known to beachgoers for the painful stings delivered by its tentacles.[21] Because they can sting while beached, the discovery of a man o' war washed up on a beach may lead to the closure of the beach. – This seems off-topic for the "Habitat" section; the article already has dedicated sections for this information.
• Treatment for sting pain is immersion in 45 °C (113 °F) water for 20 minutes – Readers like me wonder why hot water helps; what is the reason?

Sources review

• gonozooids (which are accessory gastrozooids) – the source says "what Totton calls ‘gonozooids’, or secondary gastrozooids", so I wonder if this is really an established term? The term also does not appear in the overview diagram shown in the "Description" section, even though that diagram is from the same source. Instead, the diagram gives "palpon" as another part of the gonodendron.
• The pneumatophore or bladder is the most conspicuous part of the man o' war. This large, gas-filled, translucent structure is pink, purple or blue in color; it is 9 to 30 cm (3.5 to 11.8 in) long and rises as much as 15 cm (6 in) above the water. – I cannot find this in source 17, but maybe I'm just missing it?
• The colony hunts and feeds through the cooperation of two types of zooids: tentacle-bearing zooids known as dactylozooids (or palpons), and gastrozooids. – However, the cited source says the term dactylozooid has historically been applied to palpons in other siphonophore species but is not currently used, and dactylozooids are specialized palpon-like defensive zooids in other hydrozoans31–33. To avoid confusion about the homology of this zooid, we suggest that the term dactylozooid should not be used. Please explain, thanks.
• Large groups of Portuguese man o' war, sometimes over 1,000 individuals, may deplete fisheries.[20][25] – checks mostly out though the source says "reduce", not "deplete". I see that we should avoid close paraphrasing, but isn't "deplete" a much stronger word with a different meaning than "reduce" and therefore misrepresents the source?
• Often, finding a single Portuguese man o' war is followed by finding many others in the vicinity – Can't find this in source, am I missing it?

Hmm, I worry a bit about text-source integrity (unless I am missing stuff). It's not too bad, but after a couple of checks, I found two instances where the source does not seem to support the text at all. Could you please clarify those? I might have to check a couple more sources to make my decision. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:13, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

This should be done now. I've deleted some unsourced info and rephrased or changed what was in the article to match the sources. I also deleted another duplicate source that I found ([13] and [20]). — ZKevinTheCat

• Closing note: I have to fail this article (per WP:QF) because my continued source review found severe plagiarism. Some sentences were entirely copied from the sources. One example is this sentence: The man o' war uses a float filled with carbon monoxide and air as a sail to travel by wind for thousands of miles, dragging behind long tentacles that deliver a deadly venomous sting to fish. This is sourced to [56], but the sentence is actually copied from [2]. The entire opening paragraph of "Drifting dynamics" reads as if it was copied from the introduction of a paper (apparently, mostly from that linked Nature article), it does not even fit within the article (e.g., it does not have to mention that it is also called the "bluebottle"). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:54, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

Addendum: I now see that the plagiarized Nature paper is under a free license, meaning that the material could potentially stay if the source is acknowledged accordingly, but I do not see that this happened. Instead, different sources were cited that do not even contain the information; hence, it remains a case of plagiarism. Even though the issue is less severe than I thought (because of the free license), my decision to fail still stands, also because the article from which the text was copied from was not cited, so combined with the other (now fixed) spotcheck results above, I still have a serious headache on the sourcing side, and I believe that the article needs a general overhaul to eliminate these issues. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:08, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Physalia split into four species

Should the genus page be resurrected?

https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/thebeachcomber/113902-physalia-physalis-bluebottle-portuguese-man-o-war-split-into-four-species -rudyard (talk) 05:15, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Too soon might apply here. I think it is best to wait a bit, to see if other studies agree. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 07:28, 1 July 2025 (UTC)