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Velella is a genus of free-floating hydrozoans that lives on the surface of the open ocean, worldwide, and is commonly known by the names by-the-wind sailor, purple sail, little sail, or simply Velella. The most common, and perhaps the only species encountered is Velella velella.

These small cnidarians are part of a specialised ocean surface community that also includes the cnidarian siphonophore known as the Portuguese Man o' War, as well as some specialized predatory gastropod mollusks, including nudibranchs (sea slugs) in the genus Glaucus and purple snails in the genus Janthina, all of which eat Velella.

Each Velella is a hydroid colony, and most are less than about 7 cm long. They are usually deep blue in colour, but their most obvious feature is a small stiff sail that catches the wind and propels them over the surface of the sea. Under certain wind conditions, they can become stranded on beaches in the thousands.

In common with other Cnidaria, Velella are carnivorous animals. They catch their prey, generally plankton, by means of cnidocyst (also called nematocyst) -laden tentacles that hang down in the water. Though the toxins in their nematocysts are effective against their prey, Velella are harmless to humans, either because their nematocysts are unable to pierce our skin, or perhaps because humans do not react to the toxins encapsulated in their nematocysts. Nevertheless, it is probably wise not to touch your face or eyes if you have been handling Velella.

Close-up of a Velella

Stranded Velella

Distribution and habitat

Velella velella occur in warm and temperate waters in all the world's oceans. They live at the water/air interface, with the float above the water, and polyps hanging down about a centimeter below. Organisms that live partly in and partly out of the water like this are known as pleuston. Offshore boaters are sometimes treated to seeing thousands of V. velella at a time on the water surface.

Having no means of locomotion, V. velella are at the mercy of prevailing winds for moving around the seas, and are thereby also subject to mass-strandings on beaches throughout the world. For example, most years in the spring, there is a mass stranding that occurs along the West Coast of North America, from British Columbia to California, beginning in the north and moving south over several weeks' time. In some years, so many animals are left at the tide line by receding waves, that the line of dying (and subsequently rotting) animals may be many centimetres deep, along hundreds of kilometres of beaches. Mass strandings have been reported also on the west coast of Ireland.^[1]

Life history

Like many Hydrozoa, Velella velella has a bipartite life cycle, with a sort of alternation of generations. The deep blue by-the-wind sailors that are recognized by many beach-goers are the polyp phase of the life cycle. Each "individual" with its sail is really a hydroid colony, with many polyps that feed on ocean plankton and are connected by a canal system that enables the colony to share whatever food is ingested by individual polyps. Each by-the-wind sailor is a colony of all-male or all-female polyps. The colony has several different kinds of polyps, some of which are both feeding and reproductive, called gonozooids, and others protective, called dactylozooids.^[2]

The gonozooids each produce numerous tiny jellyfish by an asexual budding process, so that each Velella colony produces thousands of tiny jellyfish (medusae), each about 1 mm high and wide, over several weeks. The tiny medusae are each provided with many zooxanthellae, single-celled endosymbiotic organisms typically also found in corals and some sea anemones, that can utilize sunlight to provide energy to the jellyfish. Curiously, although a healthy captive Velella will release many medusae under the microscope and thus must do the same in the sea, the medusae of Velella are rarely captured in the plankton and very little is known about their natural history. The medusae develop to sexual maturity within about three weeks in the laboratory and their free-spawned eggs and sperm develop into new floating hydroid colonies.^[2]

Systematics

The Porpitidae is a family of the Hydrozoa erected for three genera of hydroids that live floating free at the surface of the open ocean: Velella, Porpita and Porpema. The systematic position of these peculiar genera has long been a topic of discussion among taxonomists who work with pelagic Cnidaria. The three genera were put in with Athecate hydroids in the mid-to-late 19th century by some, whereas other authors at the time included them in the Siphonophora. A new order was established for these genera by Totton,^[3] in 1954, called the Chondrophora, while at the same time, other authors favored again placing them in the Anthomedusae/Athecatae.^[2] Most authors in the past 40 years have accepted interpretation of these animals as unusual floating colonial Athecate hydroids, which produce medusae clearly belonging in the Anthomedusae. Although the exact position of the family Porpitidae within the Athecatae/Anthomedusae is not yet clear, the order Chondrophora is no longer used by Hydrozoan systematists.

See also

• Porpita porpita

References