Anthopleura hermaphroditica

Anthopleura hermaphroditica, also known as the small brown sea anemone, is a small anemone about 10 mm wide in diameter and very brown in colour. It is native to the waters around Chile and New Zealand. The brownish tinge of its outer surface makes it much harder to distinguish and find unlike some of the other sea anemones. This particular class of anemone can be seen under water as a small brown ring in soft fine sediment and slightly submerged.

Anthopleura hermaphroditica
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Anthozoa
Order: Actiniaria
Family: Actiniidae
Genus: Anthopleura
Species:
A. hermaphroditica
Binomial name
Anthopleura hermaphroditica
(Carlgren, 1899)
Synonyms
  • Anthopleura areoradiata
  • Anthopleura aureoradiata (Stuckey, 1909)
  • Anthopleura aureo-radiata (Stuckey, 1909)
  • Anthopleura hermafroditica
  • Bunodes aureoradiata Stuckey, 1909
  • Bunodes hermafroditica
  • Cribrina hermaphroditica (Carlgren, 1899)

This brown anemone has quite a high tolerance to changes in salinity and to a high concentration of organic matter in the water.

Feeding

The small brown anemone feeds on plankton and small animals.

Habitat

The small brown anemone is distributed throughout estuaries in current-free areas. They all usually found attached to cockles who with they form a commensal relationship as the anemone gets protection and the cockle becomes more camouflaged and so can hide better from predators such as the mud flat whelk (Cominella glandiformis) or sea gulls.

Reproduction

Fertilization is external and the zygote develops into a pear-shaped planula which attaches to rocks or solid substrate and develops into a young adult.

gollark: It's an unstar!
gollark: I already POSTED that, but sure.
gollark: ++remind 11h50m 8:36ish is accurate because this does not do its timing very precisely.
gollark: ++remind 3h i3 is a window manager of some sort, not a DE.
gollark: https://github.com/vizs/manjarno

References
    • Senior Biologists (1999). Zonation in the Avon-Heathcoe Estuary. Christchurch, New Zealand: Burnside High School. pp. 1–20.


    This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.