A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1467 entries
velella
Velella is the scientific name for the small blue oval float that carries a stiff transparent sail set diagonally across its deck and drifts on the surface of the open ocean. Its English name is by-the-wind sailor. It cannot swim, it travels at an angle to the wind rather than straight downwind, and it comes ashore in windrows of thousands when the wind turns onshore.
Etymology
The name is a diminutive of the Latin for a sail or a covering, so it means little sail, and Linnaeus used it twice, giving the animal a scientific name that says sail sail. The same Latin root gives English veil and the anatomical velum, the soft palate.
Notes
The sail is set either left or right of the long axis, fixed early in development, and the two forms sail at opposite angles to the wind. A Soviet scientist proposed in 1958 that this is one species sorting itself geographically, with the prevailing winds of each ocean basin delivering left-handed and right-handed individuals to different coasts. It belongs to the pleuston, the community living in the film where air meets water.