The sandy anemone (''Bunodactis reynaudi'') is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

sea anemone Sea anemones ( ) are a group of predation, predatory marine invertebrates constituting the order (biology), order Actiniaria. Because of their colourful appearance, they are named after the ''Anemone'', a terrestrial flowering plant. Sea anemone ...

in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Actiniidae Actiniidae is the largest family (biology), family of sea anemones, to which most common, temperate, shore species belong. Most members of this family do not participate in symbiosis, symbioses with fishes. Three exceptions are the bubble-tip an ...

.Branch, G.M., Branch, M.L, Griffiths, C.L. and Beckley, L.E. 2010. ''Two Oceans: a guide to the marine life of southern Africa'' It is native to very shallow water round the coasts of southern Africa between Luderitz and

Durban Durban ( ; , from meaning "bay, lagoon") is the third-most populous city in South Africa, after Johannesburg and Cape Town, and the largest city in the Provinces of South Africa, province of KwaZulu-Natal. Situated on the east coast of South ...

Description

The sandy anemone is a medium-sized anemone of up to 10 cm in diameter. It has over 300 short tentacles. Its body column is covered with sticky knobs to which sand and debris particles adhere. The species has a wide range of colours, including pink, brown, green and blue often with a contrastingly-coloured oral disc.Jones, Georgina. ''A field guide to the marine animals of the Cape Peninsula.'' SURG, Cape Town, 2008.

Distribution

The sandy anemone is found off the Argentinian coast and around the southern African coast from Luderitz to Durban. It inhabits waters from the intertidal to about in depth. It is found in pools on the lower shore and in crevices on rocks, often huddled into sandy gullies and round the bases of boulders. Juveniles are often found in mussel beds.

Ecology

This anemone is often seen crowded together in small gullies with strong wave action. It feeds on

mussel Mussel () is the common name used for members of several families of bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and Freshwater bivalve, freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other ...

whelk Whelks are any of several carnivorous sea snail species with a swirling, tapered shell. Many are eaten by humans, such as the common whelk of the North Atlantic. Most whelks belong to the family Buccinidae and are known as "true whelks." Othe ...

s, other molluscs, and urchins. It has an extremely strong contractile sphincter muscle which helps it grip and ingest passing food quickly before it is taken away by the waves. This anemone is larger and particularly abundant in areas where there is strong wave action that tears molluscs from the rocks, and it seems to rely on this turbulence to supply its prey. Sea anemones lack the free-swimming medusal stage of the lifecycle of the typical Cnidarian; the sandy anemone produces eggs and sperm, and the fertilized egg develops into a

planula A planula is the free-swimming, flattened, ciliated, bilaterally symmetric larval form of various cnidarian species and also in some species of Ctenophores, which are not related to cnidarians at all. Some groups of Nemerteans also produce larva ...

larva which drifts as part of the plankton before settling on the seabed and developing directly into a juvenile sea anemone.*

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sandy Anemone Actiniidae Animals described in 1857