Stunning Siphonophore

And to think they originally thought this was garbage... Siphonophore, who usually appear to be a single organism, are actually a colony composed of many individual animals....

During an expedition in the Gulf of Mexico, researchers on the Ocean Exploration Trust’€™s EV Nautilus came across a weird-looking purple thing. At first, they thought it was garbage, but upon further inspection, they were able to determine that it was a siphonophore. Yes, a siphonophore–everyone’s soon-to-be favorite living colony.