Ocean Phantom

The Ocean Phantom is an enourmous, dangerous, floating physaliid syphonophore which lived 100 million years in the future, evolved from the Portuguese Man O' War and first appeared in the future documentary The Future is Wild swimming on the Shallow Seas.

Facts
This large and sinister hydrozoan jellyfish can be seen slowly gliding over a red algae reef. It casts a long shadow which creeps across the irregular surface of the reef.

The looming shape of the creature has a peculiar translucent quality when seen from below. It trails a forest of streamer-like organs and tentacles that brush across the surface of the reef, probing into crevices, questing around the red cups of the algae. The creeping darkness overhead will throw smaller swimmers (like young fish that cruise and gyrate among the red algae) into confusion. The ocean phantom is a floating menace. It is no different from its relatives - an order of communal jellyfish, delicate and transparent in appearance but predatory in behavior. The most well-known of these was the Portuguese man o' war of the Quaternary, which the ocean phantom is descended from. Each siphonophore specimen, although appearing to be a single organism, is actually a colony composed of many individuals (one provides a floating chamber while others adapt as feeding organs, stringing organs or reproductive organs).

A typical ocean phantom is over 10 meters long (30 feet long), 4 meters wide (13 feet wide) and consists of many thousands of individuals. The largest part of it is the float. This looks like a giant mattress, made up of an assemblage of small air sacs. On its surface are a number of sails, turning and catching the wind to drive the animal along. These sails are gas-filled, but their walls contain a network of tubes which can be filled with water to control their shape. By filling different tubes, the ocean phantom can turn the sail to face any direction, catching the wind from whichever quarter it comes. When the water is withdrawn, the sails collapse.

The ocean phantom does not just drift downwind. When necessary it can tack like a yacht, moving its bulk against the wind. The force of the wind is counterbalanced by the pressure of the water against the submerged "keels". There are also individuals in the colony that produce water jets, driving the phantom along when winds and currents are insufficient to do so. Other individuals act as rudders. This sophisticated setup carries the ocean phantom from one reef to another on its quest for food supplies. It can sense wind direction and bottom depth, and so avoids dangerous shallows, beaches and exposed rocks where it might become trapped or damaged. When not feeding or avoiding hazards, the phantom simply drifts along with its sails collapsed and its underwater appendages retracted. It traverses the Shallow Seas like an enormous piece of lifeless flotsam. Only when it is hungry, or when it drifts towards the reefs, does the whole colony spring into action.

When hungry, an ocean phantom-guarding Spindletrooper scratches at the walls of its home bell, stimulating it to regurgitate food from the rest of the colony. In return, the spindletrooper provides defense, coming out to fight when its ocean phantom colony is threatened. With their large chelicerae and long chelae, they slash at anything that attacks their ocean phantom home.

Ocean Mysteries
A male Ocean Phantom was floating across a red algae reef in The Great Ocean hunting for fish. But, the Ocean Phantom was first seen when the male Four-Lined Catwhale was looking for food and found it. The Catwhale ambushed on the Phantom and then stroke, starting a fight.

The Ocean Phantom sent out a group of Spindletroopers to attack the marine feline. But the cat was to strong and knocked them into the reefs, making them too weak enough to swim back up to the Ocean Phantom. Eventually, the Catwhale won because the feline scared it off and the Phantom swam away with a dead member of the small working colony caused by the catwhale and tries to find another red algae reef.