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Chocolate drizzle flatworm wallpaper
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On view at the Aquarium inRocky Shore
The aggregating anemone has a tube-shaped body crowned with tentacles. Zoochlorellae, a type of microalgae, and zooxanthellae, a photosynthesizing dinoflagellate, live in the anemone’s tissues and contribute to its green color. The organisms supply energy to the anemone in the form of carbon, a product of photosynthesis. The anemone bends toward or away from sunlight to provide the symbiotic organisms with the proper amount of light needed for photosynthesis.
Column diameter to 2.5 inches (6.4 cm); crown to 3.5 inches (8.9 cm)
Copepods, isopods, amphipods
Alaska to Baja California intertidal zone to about 60 feet (18.3 m)
Jellies, corals, gorgonians, fish-eating anemones; Phylum: Cnidaria; Class: Anthozoa
The anemone is a voracious feeder that eats almost anything that passes by, such as falling mussels, barnacle molts and small fishes. Stinging cells (nematocysts) on its tentacles paralyze prey. The aggregating anemone can even ingest small crabs and spew out the shells.
Aggregating anemones can reproduce by spawning or asexual division (also known as binary fission). Asexual division often occurs in the fall and winter seasons, followed by spawning in the spring and summer seasons. Asexual division creates colonies of genetically identical anemones.
Because the aggregating anemone can rapidly clone itself, it’s abundant on rocky shores. Oil spills or oil that washes to the ocean from storm drains, however, can destroy anemone habitats — and it can take two years or more for habitats to recover from such catastrophes.
If you go tidepooling, be careful not to walk on or disturb anemones and other tidepool creatures.
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