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Anémona tubo mediterránea (Cerianthus membranaceus), Parque natural de la Arrábida, Portugal, 2021-09-09, DD 49
2021-09-09
- Classification
- Photograph
- Museum
- Wikimedia Commons
- Rights
- CC BY-SA 4.0, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Kids profiles and older: it shows nature, places, still life or a children's book. How works are placed
About this work
Cylinder anemone (Cerianthus membranaceus), Arrábida Natural Park, Portugal. This tube-dwelling anemone has an oral disc with a diameter of up to 40 cm (16 in). There are two whorls of tentacles, amounting to about two hundred tentacles in all. Those in the outer whorl are long and slender and armed with cnidocytes (stinging cells) and are used for catching prey. Tentacles in the inner whorl are shorter and function to transfer captured food to the central mouth. This species is found on the seabed in shallow water in the Mediterranean Sea, the northern Adriatic Sea and the northeastern Atlantic Ocean, its range extending as far north as Britain. The tentacles of Cerianthus membranaceus do not retract, but the whole animal can retreat into its tube. As it does so, some of the tentacles grip the rim and pull the tube closed behind it, effectively making it disappear from view. The tube is normally a permanent home, but if the anemone is disturbed from below, as by a burrowing sea urchin, it can eject itself from its tube, move to a new location and secrete a new tube. C. membranaceus feeds on small fish and planktonic organisms which it catches with its tentacles. It is a…
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