Atlantic Beadlet Anemone
Actinia equina
Gem Anemone
Bunodactis verrucosa
About
The gem anemone is a small sea anemone with a wart-covered column and banded tentacles, found tucked into rocky shores.
How to tell it apart
Other small anemones on the same shores can look similar when closed. The gem anemone is told apart by its wart-covered column and the fine pink, grey, or olive banding on its transparent tentacles.
Appearance
The body is cylinder-shaped and wider at the base than at the top, with the column wall covered in wart-like bumps. The column is pink or grey, and the bumps are grey or white. Up to forty-eight tentacles sit above it, in transparent bands of pink, grey, or olive.
Habitat
This anemone lives on rocky coasts of the northeastern Atlantic, North Sea, and Mediterranean, from Shetland and western Scotland south, including all round Ireland. It wedges into crevices and rock pools, often growing among pink, calcified Corallina algae, in both strong currents and calm water.
Log it in Into the Blue
Describe what you saw and we name it, then keep every species you find in your Oceandex.
