Porpita

1 definition found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Porpita \Por"pi*ta\, n. [NL., from Gr. ? brooch.] (Zool.)
     A genus of bright-colored Siphonophora found floating in the
     warmer parts of the ocean. The individuals are round and
     disk-shaped, with a large zooid in the center of the under
     side, surrounded by smaller nutritive and reproductive
     zooids, and by slender dactylozooids near the margin. The


     disk contains a central float, or pneumatocyst.
     [1913 Webster]