#beadlet anemone

[podartists]

Anemone actinia or sea anemone (Actinia anemone) [Pl. 27] | The Naturalist's Miscellany v.1 | Biodiversity Heritage Library

[animalids]

Beadlet anemone (Actinia equina)

Photo by Mike Wynne Powell

[podartists]

Anemone actinia or sea anemone (Actinia anemone) [Pl. 26] | The Naturalist's Miscellany v.1 | Biodiversity Heritage Library

[madbirdwoman]

[mirtapersonal]

not outer space, but an anemone

[paeonia-green]

Beadlet Anemone (Actinia equina)

[pagurus]

Beadlet anemone (Actinia equina)

Taxonomy: Animalia, Cnidaria, Anthozoa, Hexacorallia (subclass), Actiniaria, Actiniidae, Actinia, A. equina

Description: Single polyps reach 5cm in width, with up to 192 tentacles in 6 rows. The column is smooth, and coloration ranges from red to green. At the base of the tentacles is a ring of acrorhagi, which are often described as looking like small beads. Outside of water, A. equina appears to be a jelly-like blob.

Lifestyle: A. equina can be found on rocky shores throughout Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and in water up to depths of 20m. As with many intertidal organisms, A. equina can tolerate a variety of temperatures and salinity levels. They are carnivorous, and capture prey with their tentacles- this prey ranges from crustaceans to small fish.

Images from ARKive.

Beadlets are pretty cool anemones, especially in terms of their territorial behaviour. If they feel that another beadlet is too close to them, they inflate their acrorhagi and hit the opposing anemone with them- the nodes contain nematocysts- stinging cells- and are only used for fighting other anemones of the same species. The nematocysts leave visible markings on the anemones they hit (an example of which can be seen here).

Beadlets are also interesting in that they are viviparous- they give birth to live young. Embryos develop inside the body before being released as juveniles.

[libutron]

Beadlet anemone  (Tomate de mar)

Actinia equina (Actiniaria - Actiniidae), the Beadlet anemone, is a considerably versatile intertidal sea anemone, with a wide array of color variation, from green to red. The most common hue is rust-red.

In the beadlet anemone, the tentacles (up to 192) are arranged radially in six circles around the mouth (the opening to the gastrovascular cavity). Bright blue spots (shown in the photo), called acrorhagi, are below the tentacles on the outer margin of the column and look like warts.

This sea anemone is found primarily in the North Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterannean Sea, but populations also exist stretching down along Africa's Atlantic coast.

Reference: [1]

Photo credit: ©Jeroen Zetz

Locality: Scherpenisse, Zeeland, Netherlands