SCI-TECH

A team of university students in Japan identified an entirely new species of the mighty Portuguese Man O’War. Described in a study recently published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, the creature’s distinct features and fearsome venom have earned it a name that honors a famous 16th century samurai warrior.

It’s easy to mistake the Portuguese Man O’War (Physalia physalis) for a jellyfish. After all, it features a squishy “head” and venomous tendrils extending as far as 100 feet down into the ocean waters. These tentacles contain a potent neurotoxin that immobilizes its prey—as well as injure thousands of beachgoers around the world every year. But while the Man O’War (also known as a bluebottle) resembles a jellyfish, it’s actually an evolutionary relative known as a siphonophore. Instead of a single animal, siphonophores are composed of individual, genetically identical organisms called zooids. Different zooids focus on specific functions like reproduction, hunting, and digestion, allowing them to operate as a single, collaborative creature.

For around 250 years, marine biologists believed the Man O’War was its own distinct species. However, in June 2025, researchers confirmed that the infamous siphonophore is actually at least four separate species. Now, that number has been upped to five after a student’s unexpected encounter in Japan.

“I was working on a completely different research project around Sendai Bay in the Tohoku region, when I came across this unique ‘jellyfish’ I had never seen around here before,” study co-author Yoshiki Ochiai said in a statement. “I scooped it up, put it in a Ziplock bag, hopped on my scooter, and brought it back to the lab.”

The animal’s arguably most striking feature was its strikingly cobalt blue pneumatophore. This gas-filled bladder allows it to continually float on the ocean’s surface, while its lengthy tentacles trawl along for prey. Ochiai showed the find to marine ecologist Chanikarn Yongstar, who helped describe and record the animal’s morphology.

“I looked at each individual part, comparing its appearance to old tomes where scholars drew out the jellyfish anatomy by hand,” said Yongstar. “A real challenge when you look at just how many tangled parts it has.”

Before their examination, biologists thought only one Man O’War now known as Physalia utriculus swam in the region between Okinawa and Sagami Bay off Japan’s eastern coast. They soon realized the area actually has been home to two separate species this entire time. 

The latest discovery is now classified as Physalia mikazuki, which translates to, “crescent helmet Man O’War.” The name is an ode to Date Masamune who lived from 1567-1636 CE. Masamune was one of the city of Sendai’s feudal lords, or daimyō, and displayed a recognizable crescent moon on his helmet. Also known as “One-Eyed Dragon of Ōshū,” Masamune is a renowned figure in the nation’s history and was even the subject of multiple Japanese period dramas.

In addition to its distinct characteristics, P. mikazuki is the first recorded Physalia sighting that far north. This prompted researchers to wonder about its origins.

“[It] is an exciting finding in and of itself, but we still had questions about how it got here,” added study co-author Kei Chloe Tan.

To investigate, colleagues ran a particle simulation to test P. mikazuki’s possible travel routes atop the ocean currents. These scenarios tracked potential paths over the course of weeks or even months based on environmental factors like current speed, water temperatures, and weather patterns. The results indicate P. mikazuki likely followed the warm and powerful Kuroshio Current. The current has begun to extend further north in conjunction with high ocean-surface temperature anomalies in the Pacific Ocean. Although the first of its kind to be documented, the planet’s shifting climate suggests it will be far from the last P. mikazuki sighting.

The post Portuguese Man O’War species honors ‘One-Eyed Dragon’ samurai appeared first on Popular Science.

In 15 BCE, the Romans invaded parts of Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. The region would eventually become the province of Raetia, but it was not valued for its economic resources. Instead, Raetia provided Rome with a strategic defensive position against potential invaders. Over 2,000 years later, the mighty ancient empire’s historic presence in the region still comes up to the surface every once in a while.

Construction work and related archaeological endeavors in the German Upper Bavarian district of Eichstätt has revealed the foundations of a Roman tumulus, or burial mound. Structures like these are rare in the former province of Raetia, and the excavations also revealed evidence of prehistoric settlements and ceramic remains.  

“We did not expect to discover a burial monument of this age and size here,” Mathias Pfeil, General Conservator of the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments, said in a translated statement. “The tumulus was located directly on an important Roman transport axis, allowing the family to commemorate a deceased person in a way that was visible from afar. The tomb was both a place of remembrance and an expression of social status.”

The discovery consists of a carefully arranged 39-foot-wide stone ring with a square extension that likely featured a statue or stele (a stone slab engraved with text and/or images). The stone circle is all that remains of the wall that once encircled the tumulus, and a tumuli with such large stone ring walls are “extremely rare” in Raetia.

Most burial mounds in the region date back further to the Bronze and Iron Ages. In fact, the researchers are now trying to determine if the  tumulus represents an intentional revival of pre-Roman sepulture traditions. Nevertheless, Roman central Europe and Italy had a long tradition of tumuli starting in the first century CE. Romans sometimes even reused Bronze and Iron Age structures to build their  burial mounds. 

Interestingly, the tumulus in question is empty of both a skeleton and grave goods. That doesn’t necessarily mean tomb raiders got there first, however. Since the burial mound is located along an important Roman road and close to a former Roman country estate, researchers theorize that the tumulus is a cenotaph, a memorial—sometimes an empty tomb—to someone interred elsewhere. 

The post ‘Extremely rare’ Roman tomb discovered in Germany appeared first on Popular Science.