Slug-like Sea Anemone
June 19, 2006
From: Bruce Wilkie
Hi Bill,
I found these animals recently and I am not even sure if they are nudies. I have been seaching for a couple of weeks with no results. Hopefully you can help me out with an id because I have absolutely no idea.
Locality: Flat Rock North Stradbroke Island, 24 m, Queensland, Australia, Pacific ocean, 03 June 2006, rocky reef with sponges, hard & soft corals . Length: 50mm. Photographer: Bruce Wilkie.
Many Thanks,
Bruce Wilkie.
brucedwilkie@yahoo.com.au
Wilkie,B, 2006 (Jun 19) Slug-like Sea Anemone. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/16885
Dear Bruce,
You are entitled to be puzzled by this/these animals. The tentacles do have the look of a dorid circlet of gills, but they are the feeding tentacles of a Sea Anemone. This is outside my area of expertise but it looks like a genus, Nemanthes, which is often found attached to the stalks of branched colonial animals like gorgonians, sea whips, etc. Because of where it lives, it doesn't have the normal circular attachment base, but instead a long elongate extension out each side to wrap along the stalk it is attached to.
The other interesting thing is the presence of small juveniles alongside, suggesting that this is an anemone that reproduces by budding off small clones of itself.
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman
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