Skip to content

You Might as Well Swim!

2020-06-26 · explainer · Hank · 3:53 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Science & nature (also: Projects) · mode: Explainer · tags: self promotion, recurring series, community lore

In the twelfth and last Vlogbrothers Bizarre Beast, Hank explains that the Portuguese man o' war is not one animal but a colonial organism of four genetically distinct animals, a confusing but working way to live, and announces that Bizarre Beasts continues on its own YouTube channel with the Pin Club.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — The year of monthly Bizarre Beasts and the Pin Club; this is the twelfth, an animal that is not an animal

  • ★★ A year ago Hank decided to make a monthly video about a weird animal on the vlog, each with a pin for Bizarre Beasts Pin Club members; this is the twelfth. — 00:00:00 · Bizarre Beasts

00:00:29 — Hank's childhood man o' war sting at the beach; why the organism is still poorly understood

  • ★★ Hank reminds John that as kids at the beach he stepped on a dead Portuguese man o' war and was in pain for a full day. — 00:00:29 · John Green
  • ★★ Hank had assumed these common, weird animals were well understood; the gaps are not for lack of curiosity but because they are just very confusing. — 00:00:29

00:00:58 — Four animals as one colonial siphonophore: unknown overlap, giant tentacles, sheltering fish, the sail, fisheries and carbon monoxide

  • ★★★ A Portuguese man o' war is not an animal but four genetically distinct animals with their own nervous systems forming one colonial organism: stomach, gonads, float and tentacles. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ How much the four parts overlap, and how four nervous systems communicate, is not known. (unsure) — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Life isn't supposed to work any particular way but in the way that works, and the Portuguese man o' war as a colonial siphonophore works. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ The colonies are predators that send out stinging tentacles up to 165 feet. — 00:02:01
  • ★★ Some fish avoid or resist the tentacles and shelter among them from larger predators, and one species lives there and feeds on the man o' war. — 00:02:01
  • ★★ Named for the sailing ships they roughly resemble, they do sail: the float's sail lets the wind push them so the tentacles trail behind instead of costing energy. — 00:02:01
  • ★★ They are so good at catching fish that large colonies can deplete fisheries. — 00:02:30
  • ★★ The gas in their floats is 14% carbon monoxide, which could kill you, though only if you cut one open and breathed a lot of it. — 00:02:30

00:02:57 — Evolution's variety; the project outgrows four minutes: the new Bizarre Beasts channel with Sara Suta and an expanded Pin Club

  • ★★ The variety of ways evolution has found for organisms to survive really does astound Hank. — 00:02:57
  • ★★ Hank says it has been such a fun project, and he has loved getting a new pin in his mailbox every month. — 00:02:57 · Bizarre Beasts
  • ★★ Hank has felt limited by Vlogbrothers' four-minute limit, because there is a lot to say about these animals. — 00:02:57 · Four-minute rule, Vlogbrothers
  • ★★★ Hank isn't ending it: he announces a new YouTube channel, Bizarre Beasts, co-hosted with Sara Suta, one weird animal a month, with the Pin Club continuing and opening to more people. — 00:03:22 · Bizarre Beasts
  • ★★★ Hank asks viewers to follow him to Bizarre Beasts, subscribe now, and sign up for the Pin Club if they want. — 00:03:22 · Bizarre Beasts

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says the two very similar man o' war species are each composed of four zooids, bound together for their whole life cycles: an animal made of animals. — video description
  • ★ In a comment Hank adds that the animals aren't Portuguese: the ship they were named after was. (playful) — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Bizarre Beasts · Portuguese man o' war

Also: Bizarre Beasts Pin Club · carbon monoxide · evolution · Four-minute rule · Sarah Suda · siphonophore

Only in the description or credits: All Star

← Previous: You'll Never Shine if You Don't Glow · Next → i like it