Anemones

Burrowing Green anemone

Scientific name: Anthropleura artemisia

Family: Actiniidae

Phylum: Cnidaria

Typical size: Up to 10 cm in diameter

Depth range: Intertidal to subtidal zone 

Description: Flat anemones buried in the sand. Stalk is green and tentacles can be green or other colors with white bands. 

Habitat and behavior: The burrowing green anemone preys with stinging tentacles on small crustaceans like copepods.

crimson anemone

Scientific name: Cribrinopsis fernaldi

Family: Actiniidae

Phylum: Cnidaria

Typical size: Up to 20 centimeters in diameter and around 25 inches tall. 

Depth range: Up to 300 meters

Description: They are white, yellow or pink with small zig-zag patterns that are usually red down the tentacles. 

Habitat and behavior: Lives from Aleutian Islands to Puget Sound. 

giant plumose anemone

Scientific name: Metridum farcimen/giganteum

Family: Metridiidae

Phylum: Cnidaria

Typical size: Up to 60 centimeters tall

Depth range: Cnidaria

Description: Plumose anemones are white, orange, or yellow and have a long body. They can be easily recognized by their feather-like tentacles that come off the top of the anemone.

Habitat and behavior: When provoked, they can change size dramatically to shrink down. In order to defend itself or attack prey, the plumose anemone expels acontina, or threadlike filaments bearing nematocytes (stinging cells) out of tiny holes on the anemones body and tubercles. Plumose anemones prey on anything that floats by, including egg yolk jellyfish.

Green surf anemone

Scientific name: Anthopleura xanthogrammica

Family: Actiniidae

Phylum: Cnidaria

Typical size: Up to 30 centimeters in diameter and 30 centimeters tall 

Depth range: Up to 30 meters 

Description: Their column is usually a dark green or brown and the tentacles are a green or gray-blue color. 

Habitat and behavior: Lives from Alaska to Panama. They can live in tidepools or on rocks in tidal zones. They have symbiotic relationships with zooxanthellae or  zoochlorellae.

painted anemone

Scientific name: Urticina crassicornis

Family: Cnidaria

Phylum: Actiniidae

Typical size: 10-25 centimeters in diameter

Depth range: intertidal - shallow subtidal zone

Description: Organism’s color is most common green with red blotches, but varies greatly. It may also be a solid color of yellow, brown, white, green, or red. Organism’s composition consists of a stocky column with stubby, white banded tentacles with a blunt tip. 

Habitat and behavior: Commonly found on rocky reefs attached to hard surfaces, including underneath overhangs. They have a general diet that includes crustaceans, bivalves, fish, chitons, and sometimes jellies. Easily confused with Urticina grebelnyi, another similar species, but the distinguishing factor is a smooth body without any bumps or tubercles (it is actually undecided whether or not these are actually the same species). The painted anemone has a symbiotic (commensal) relationship with the small candy-striped shrimp (Lebbeus grandimanus) which can be seen around the tentacles.

Sand anemone

Scientific name: Urticina columbiana

Family: Actiniidae

Phylum: Cnidaria

Typical size: 15 to 25 centimeters in diameter

Depth range: Up to 45 meters deep

Description: Red to purple color with lightly colored, long, thin tentacles. Center around the mouth can be red, green, black, or white. Column is buried in the sand and has bumps called tubercles.

Habitat and behavior: Found in sandy areas from Baja California to Vancouver Island. They often are found buried in the sand.

tube dwelling anemone

Scientific name: Pachycerianthus fimbriatus

Family: Cerianthidae

Phylum: Cnidaria

Typical size: Typically a 2.5 centimeter tube, but the body can grow to be 35 cm long. 

Depth range: subtidal to 30 meters

Description: two rings of tentacles on the anemone that lives inside of a protective tube it secretes itself. 

Habitat and behavior: Found inside soft mud and sand. Airs out tentacles to try and catch prey. Can retreat into its tube where the stem/body of the anemone is contained when threatened.