Talk:Sea anemone

Sea anemone has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. Review: September 18, 2017. (Reviewed version).

A fact from Sea anemone appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 14 October 2017 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that although most sea anemones (example pictured) are harmless to humans, a few are venomous and some can be lethal? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2017/October. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Sea anemone.

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Animals High‑importance Sea anemone is within the scope of WikiProject Animals, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to animals and zoology. For more information, visit the project page.AnimalsWikipedia:WikiProject AnimalsTemplate:WikiProject Animalsanimal articles High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. WikiProject Animals To-do: edit history watch purge Here are some Open Tasks : Copyedit: Merge: GLAM/ARKive donated texts into articles about endangered species. Improve: Photoperiodism, Tool use by non-human animals, Omnivore, Animal suicide, Sphaerium beckmani (a species in family Sphaeriidae), Requests: Mammals: Invertebrates: Campocraspedon Fishes: Zaniolepis frenata Merge: GLAM/ARKive donated texts into articles about endangered species. Expand: Junqueira cow, Atka mackerel Nominate and vote: Science collaboration of the month, Article Improvement Drive, WikiProject Animals Collaboration Marine life (inactive) This article is within the scope of WikiProject Marine life, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.Marine lifeWikipedia:WikiProject Marine lifeTemplate:WikiProject Marine lifeMarine life articles

This article states that clown fish are immune to their host's sting. I don't believe this is correct. The clown fish has a mucus coating that prevents stinging, although if removed, the clown fish will be stung. Someone with more knowledge of clown fish and anemone biology might want to edit this. Tczuel (talk) 07:53, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In which case they are immune to the sting surely? In this case immunity does not mean in the same sense as a vaccine or lack of sensitivity, after all it would be a bit of a waste for the anemone to continuously sting the clownfish. It would be good to clarify in the article why this is the case, I cannot confirm your mucous information myself but will search for it. |→ Spaully^₪† 14:58, 17 May 2009 (GMT)

Can anyone tell me what species of anemone this is? – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 20:49, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)

I think it looks like a giant green sea anemone Anthopleura xanthogrammica. Esoxid^t 17:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.156.151.141 (talk) 02:51, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The "Conservation" section of the article says:

Anemones reproduce extremely slowly, and it is common for collected specimens to be well over 100 years old.

And then, later:

Due to the short lifespan and specialized needs of anemones, they do not live long in captivity.

Anyone able to reconcile this? -- 12.74.206.13 08:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing that they have a short lifespan in captivity from how that's done. -Aaedien (talk) 01:50, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Most Sea Anemones are shipped in dark containers to local fish stores. This shipment process causes the anemone to release it's internal algae causing it to turn a white color (become bleached). People who do not know this and buy a bleached anemone can expect it to survive for about 1-2 months before it starves to death. Another cause of short life spans of anemones is due to rough handling by either the shipper or fish store employee causing it to tear it's foot. A torn foot becomes infected and usually results in a dead anemone after 1-2 months. If handled correctly and provided the right conditions and placed into the aquarium in a healthy condition then I believe it can live for a very long time. 132.20.251.4 (talk) 01:23, 9 September 2008 (UTC) RUtecht[reply]

Any chance of a diagram showing the anatomy?

I ask because I've just set up a cold water marine aquarium with rocks from a rock pool and have included 3 or 4 small anemones that I can't identify. About 7 mm diameter, body only 1 or 2 mm long, crusted with sand, about 18 tentacles, pale green. They live on a rock near the sand level and seem happy to be buried occasionally when other animals move sand around. Location: east coast of Scotland (Kingsbarns, Fife).

If I knew the anatomy I could give a more accurate description!

Norman Paterson - nrpdog-days.co.uk 81.179.240.244 21:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese wikipedia has this image. Now if I only knew chinese... http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sea_anemone.gif Cygnus78 00:00, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There is an image here I think it pretty much represent a typical Actiniaria. Lejean2000 16:02, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to point out this image I uploaded, which a maintainer may want to add to this article: Image:Haeckel Actiniae.jpg. --ragesoss 16:09, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose putting this image on the page. First of all, it is not a photo and second, we already have too many pictures. It may be a good idea to build a gallery. Lejean2000 16:25, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is not a single reference in the article. Someone should fix this.

I think it would be worth adding a section on the way some anemones form into patches and "fight" with each other, it's an interesting behavior. There is a link detailing it but nothing on the page itself. Rainman420 10:15, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, there is a picture whose caption indicates two anemones are in "clone war" but there is no description of what "clone war" is, or maybe its vandalism, but I dont know enough. 74.224.148.55 21:43, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think this sentence has been vandalized at some time, anyone knows what it's supposed to say where it says "everting"?
"..Cnydocytes contain cnidae, capsule-like organelles capable of everting, giving phylum Cnidaria its name.."

Just thought that maybe it's supposed to say "reverting", since I remember anemones sort of grasping a stick if you poked them with it. If so, isn't there maybe a better word? antabus 17:01, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bah.. Just found out that everting is an actual word all by itself, and not just missing an 'r', sorry if anyone wasted time on my behalf antabus 10:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I ran into this citation from Athenaeus today; "Considera scadenti tutti i piccoli pesci da friggere, tranne quelli ateniesi; intendo riferirmi ai gonos, che gli Ionici chiamano bavosa; e accettali solo se pescati da poco nel mare della baia di Falero (...). Se tu desideri gustarli appieno devi, al contempo al mercato, acquistare delle urticanti anemoni di mare con tentacoli a foglia. Poi uniscili al pesce e rosola tutto in padella, dopo aver preparato una crema di verdure scelte per ricoprire il tutto". (285; b, c; op. cit.). (from http://www.liberliber.it/biblioteca/c/carubia/autori_classici_greci_in_sicilia/html/testi/archestr.htm)

is there any exempls known of their utilisation as food or as anything else ? this article lacks in the relation of Human beings and the sea anemones. (perhaps theres no relation worth mentionning?)

Sea anemones are deep fried as an appetizer on the coast of Spain. The food is called "ortiguillas". The Greeks call them "Tighanites". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.161.82.230 (talk) 00:39, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

can any1 helo me with my question?well i just wanted to know how can u tell if its a boy or a girl.?

i asked this cause i jusst got a salt water tank n i have an anemone n i want to know what its sex is so i can buy the oppisite sex?!

I think that the conservation/reproduction/harvesting comments should mention that there is an alternative for artificial reef tanks, namely bubble tip anemones, that reproduce in captivity over a shorter period of time.

There are no subfamily/family links in this article, although many such pages link to it. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:21, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The picture that has the caption "Asexual reproduction of sea anemone via budding" is inaccurate. If that is Epiactis prolifera (as the file name implies), the offspring are produced sexually, and they are being brooded on the column of the large anemone, not budding from it asexually. Lars1424 (talk) 21:58, 17 November 2008 (UTC)lars1424[reply]

Is it not true that more anemones are destroyed by bottom trawling than from harvesting them for fish tanks? I don't KNOW this so I don't want to add it to the main article without a reference... 63.248.87.149 (talk) 18:53, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't some mollusks easy prey for sea anemones? I remember seeing some small squid at the end of their lives (just following reproduction)drifting into the grasp of a sea anemone and being eaten on a Cousteau documentary. Octopuses ordinarily avoid them. Mussels and other sedentary mollusks washed away from their colonies and into a surge channel carpeted with sea anemones ordinarily end up in the grasp... and get devoured. So do scallops that take a panicked flight from a sea star but alight against the tentacles of an anemone.

Mollusks have soft bodies and rarely have immunity from anemone venom. Pbrower2a (talk) 08:12, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The "Fossil record" section links the earliest fossil of a sea anemone to a brachiopod (not even in the same phylum!) that looks much like a sea anemone. Such is even more preposterous than comparing a dachshund to an alligator because both have similarly-shaped bodies and mouths and short legs for their body size. At least dachshunds and alligators are both vertebrates!Pbrower2a (talk) 21:44, 14 January 2012 (UTC) sea anemones are very weird creatures they poo and fart out of there foot — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.174.3.65 (talk) 07:29, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I came across this and was amused at how inaccurate and clearly biased the section entitled "Exploitation" is. Many of the statements contained in it are unfounded and some are completely ludicrous. It's bad enough that I wonder if it is deliberate vandalism. The "citations" for this section are all either out of date, taken out of context, or irrelevant. It also focuses on host anemone species when this page is about anemones in general. I will remove this section and hope that whoever is responsible for it finds another outlet to air their grievances for the perceived wrongdoings of the aquarium industry. I just wanted to make a note in case anyone wondered about its disappearance. Sections on anatomy, ecology, life cycle, etc. are all very relevant to a general page like this, but I'm not sure how someone's anti-aquarium rant slipped in. CrisisRose (talk) 08:48, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well spotted. The section was added five and a half years ago in this edit, the only edit by Validtruth (talk · contribs). The username alone tells you that person was a vandal. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 14:23, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The edit you are referring to has no text in common with the section CrisisRose removed, with the exception of the mention of shrimp and other obligates. I removed most of the edit you referred to and rewrote the section in question with a NPOV and citations since it was unsourced and appeared biased. I'm not sure how what I wrote is perceived as an "anti-aquarium rant." It states in a NPOV the aquarium trade of anemones. If you are referring to the title, exploitation is a scientific term meaning removal or utilization. 1985 may be an older citation, but it cites a dollar figure, which was referred to as estimated import value during that period, specifically "In the early 1980s, the estimated value of imported marine fish and invertebrates was US$24–40 million annually." The other dates for citations are 1991 (Symbiosis), 1997 (Journal of the World Aquaculture Society), 2001 (Aquarium Sciences and Conservation), 2004 (Marine Invertebrates), 2005 (Coral Reefs), and all are scientific journals, listed in parentheses. Please state how they are taken out of context, because you appear to have not read the articles in question. I will be reverting the removal, as it appears unwarranted with the explanation given. Esoxid^t 02:24, 16 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Actiniaria.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on August 23, 2012. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2012-08-23. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! —howcheng {chat} 17:50, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Picture of the day

An 1893 print showing various examples of sea anemones, a group of water-dwelling, predatory animals named after the anemone, a terrestrial flower. As cnidarians, sea anemones are closely related to corals, jellyfish, tube-dwelling anemones, and Hydra. Its body is a polyp attached at the bottom to the surface beneath it by an adhesive foot, although a few species are free-floating.Artist: Giacomo Merculiano; Restoration: Citron

Archive – More featured pictures...

In the text it says, that sea anemones are 'Zoantharia's. This is not true. They are instead 'Actiniaria's. Both are distinct Orders within the Subclass 'Hexacorallia'.

The error is to be found in ref.1, but Wikipedia should not use wrong information, if a reference fails.

Btw. The entire article is placed wrong taxonomically. Sea Anemones are not an Order in itself, and they certainly do not define the Order 'Actiniaria'. They are instead a SUBORDER within the order Actiniaria.

If you are new to taxonomy, you can get an easy overview of the structure here: Biological classification. Unfortunately the concept of Suborders are not shown on the picture, but it ought to be placed between Family and Order.

RhinoMind (talk) 18:15, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently some anemones are 'Zoantharia's, while the majority is 'Actiniaria's. Can anyone confirm this? It should be reflected in the text whatever is true. RhinoMind (talk) 20:39, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take a look at some cnidarian phylogenies to see what the consensus is. Zoantharia is typically used for fossil species, and looks like a synonym of Hexacorallia, so that should be updated. As for Actiniaria not defining sea anemones, I'm unclear as to what you mean. The suborders listed all include sea anemone species, and everything I've read define Actiniaria as sea anemones. Daly et al. (2007) has a good review of Cnidarian phylogeny. I have 9 other papers I'm going to read so I can create a taxonomy section, since there is nothing concerning it. Let me know your thoughts, I'd like the information to be correct. Esoxid^{talk•contribs} 00:19, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! I just wanted to let you know that I added a hyperlink for Amphiprion ocellaris into your article. I am a part of a Behavioral Ecology Class (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Program:Washington_University_in_St._Louis/Behavioral_Ecology_%28Fall_2013%29) Washington University and our assignment was to create hyperlinks from our articles to other articles as examples. Best of luck with your article!! Gseehra123 (talk) 22:20, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Using a camera-equipped robot to explore beneath the Ross Ice Shelf off Antarctica, scientists and engineers with the Antarctic Geological Drilling (ANDRILL) Program made an astonishing discovery. Thousands upon thousands of small sea anemones were burrowed into the underside of the ice shelf, their tentacles protruding into frigid water like flowers on a ceiling.^[1]

These animals are sea anemones of a new species, described as Edwardsiella andrillae. Edwardsiella is a genus of Edwardsiidae, a family of burrowing anemones reported from habitats ranging from the deepest trenches to hypersaline and hyposaline coastal estuaries. All previously described species belonging to Edwardsiella are from coastal waters.

This is the first species of sea anemone reported to live in ice. Previously described species of sea anemones from Antarctica are reported from hard [7-9] or soft [10-12] substrates, but always below the anchor ice.

The unprecedented habitat of Edwardsiella andrillae raises questions about the biology, physiology, and life history of the animal that cannot be answered given the present material. The means by which these animals burrow into the ice shelf is unclear, as are the physiological mechanisms that enable them to live in ice.^[2]

In addition to the anemones, the scientists saw fish that routinely swam upside down, the ice shelf serving as the floor of their undersea world. They also saw polychaete worms, amphipods and a creature they dubbed "the eggroll," a 4-inch-long, 1-inch-diameter, neutrally buoyant cylinder that seemed to swim using appendages at both ends of its body. It was observed bumping along the field of sea anemones under the ice and hanging on to them at times. The anemones measured less than an inch long in their contracted state -- though they get three to four times longer in their relaxed state, Daly said. Each features 20 to 24 tentacles, an inner ring of eight longer tentacles and an outer ring of 12 to 16 tentacles.

After using hot water to stun the creatures, the team used an improvised suction device to retrieve them from their burrows. They were then transported to McMurdo Station for preservation and further study. Because the team wasn't hunting for biological specimens, they were not equipped with the proper supplies to preserve them for DNA/RNA analyses, Rack said. The anemones were placed in ethanol at the drilling site and some were later preserved in formalin at McMurdo Station. Some sea anemones burrow into sand with tentacles or by expanding and deflating the base of their bodies, those strategies don't seem feasible for ice. It is also unclear how they survive without freezing and how they reproduce. There is no evidence of what they eat, although they likely feed on plankton in the water flowing beneath the ice shelf, Daly said.

A proposal is being prepared for further study of this unusual environment using a robot to explore deeper in the ocean and further from the access hole through the ice. NASA is helping finance the development of the new underwater robot because the Antarctic discoveries have implications for the possibility of life that may exist on Europa, the ice-covered moon of Jupiter. Researchers hope to return to Antarctica as early as 2015 to continue studying the sea anemones and other organisms beneath the ice shelf.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Sea anemone/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

I'll take on this one. Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 15:10, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• The threats section includes 'Use by humans' which sits rather uncomfortably in the section.

Renamed. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:27, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• The threat discussion wanders off course with "and could also negatively affect anemone shrimp, and any organisms obligately associated with sea anemones. Anemonefish can survive alone in captivity, as has been shown by multiple research efforts." Some of this could be salvaged by reorganising ("Impact" or something) but it's basically very close to being off-topic.

The section was originally called "Exploitation", was three times longer and a POV problem. I cut it down and have now trimmed some more and renamed the section. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:27, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• There is a photo of Mackenzia on Commons, wrongly labelled as a holothurian.

I couldn't find it. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:27, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How odd, a straight search for Mackenzia on Commons gets it at once. Here it is. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:56, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose I did find it but it is difficult to interpret and I was unimpressed. If I used it I could caption it "Sea anemones do not fossilize well, having no hard parts, and this one was mistakenly identified as a sea cucumber." Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:37, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In a way that's the point. I'd say it was well worth using. We can of course crop the image down to the relevant bit(s) if you like. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:04, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• A few species are pelagic. So they're not attached to anything? Intriguing, please explain and give example.

Added. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:27, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And taken away again as I find the pelagic sea anemone that was mentioned was in fact a tube-dwelling anemone in the order Ceriantharia. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 20:00, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• For "symbiosis" I think you mean mutualism (biology), though the claim has I believe been disputed (is it just commensalism, etc).

Done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:27, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• The thing that really is surely a mutualistic relationship is currently in Feeding and diet, the endosymbiosis with algae. Some reorg needed.

Done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:27, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Not sure that Haeckel's rather biased image is a fair representation of diversity; maybe tweak the caption.

Done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:27, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• That's a truly unclear anatomy diagram, made worse by the choice of colours and the labels which are at once vague (not reaching their targets) and intrusive (with heavy and unnecessary arrowheads).

I thought it was rather good! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:27, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ouch.

• The Taxonomy section is conspicuously lacking a cladogram (or indeed two of them, external and internal relationships). At least an external one is needed: I can draw it for you if you point me to a suitable source.

I find taxonomy difficult, and I have hardly touched the section. With regard to cladograms, I have never created one, but there is one that could be used for guidance in Anthozoa, referenced to Stampar. For the internal relationships, Rodriguez 2014 would be best. If you feel like doing them, that would be splendid. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:37, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Added an external one. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:13, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• The table is currently cited only to Carlgren 1949, I take it that Rodriguez 2014 applies?

Thanks for taking this on. I will return to it tomorrow. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:27, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• @Chiswick Chap: Thank you for adding the cladogram and the fossil image which both make quite an improvement. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:22, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My pleasure. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:24, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]