Blue button
- Scientific name
- Porpita porpita
- Phylum
- Cnidaria
- Class
- Hydrozoa
- Sting-o-meter
- 1/5
- Diameter
- 3cm
The ‘Blue button’ is a small (2-3cm diameter) jelly, closely related to Bluebottles and By-the-wind sailors. It too, is a colony of animals, rather than a single animal! Blue buttons float at the sea’s surface and use feathery tentacles to catch zooplankton.
They are often washed ashore in large numbers and are also preyed on by the sea slug Glaucus.
Credit, Denis Riek.
