It's not a Bird... It's not a Plane...It's a Siphonophore !
Biologist and scientists like to have a catalogue or a reference database of scientific and common names of animal species of all life known as the Integrated Taxonomic Information System. The outline or rank of this system is stated as: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Hydrozoa
Order: Siphonophorae
Family: Physaliidae
Genus: Physalia
Species: Physalia physalis
All jellyfish are “jellies,” but not all jellies are jellyfish. Jellyfish or “true jellies” belong to the phylum Cnidaria. Jellies are any animals that have gelatinous body forms and live in the water. The different morphologies (structure) that represent jellyfish have several different cnidarian classes including the Scyphozoa (the true jellyfish class with 200 species), Staurozoa (stalked jellyfish, 50 species), Cubozoa (box jellyfish, 20 species), and Hydrozoa (man-of-war, 1000-1500 species).
The Man-of-War on first observation is different then a jelly based on the floating crest above the water as shown in the photos on the left. It also uses a propulsion system to move through the water unlike the jelly which performs contracting and relaxing of muscles in the umbrella. The biological side of the man-of-war is made up of a colony of organisms working together which is not present in the jellyfish.
In summary, we can say the man-of-war is related to the jellyfish, but belongs to a different class.
The pacific sea nettle jelly in the photo below shows the incredible beauty of this particular species. What is truly amazing beyond the beauty is jellies are mostly made of water (about 95 percent); they do not have bones, brains, teeth, blood or fins.
The sea nettle jelly belongs to the same phylum as the man-of-war but a different class named Scyphozoa and the order named Semaeostomeae.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Scyphozoa
Order: Semaeostomeae
Family: Physaliidae
Genus: Physalia
Species: Physalia physalis
