Animalz

Rough-skinned Sea Anemone

Actinostola callosa

Rough-skinned Sea Anemone
Photo: Mutsu-sango · CC BY-SA 2.5

A seafloor anemone. A study off eastern Canada found a diverse range of small food items in its digestive cavity.[2]

Life

The Canadian specimens contained gastropods, small crustaceans and fish fragments, among other items. The study describes opportunistic passive feeding on particles and small prey.[2]

Places

Observed places · Survey waters off eastern Canada[2]

Deep seafloor

2010–2011

Swallowing a jellyfish wider than itself

Individuals in Norway’s Lurefjord raise a yellowish-white column from the seabed and spread numerous tentacles arched outwards. The mouth region is bright yellow. They can draw large jellyfish towards the mouth and swallow them.[3]

Researchers used a remotely operated vehicle in 1999 and 2000. They observed an anemone ingesting Periphylla periphylla and also placed a jellyfish about 15 cm wide near an anemone’s tentacles. The tentacles immediately adhered and shortened, pulling it towards the mouth.[3]

The anemone widened its mouth around a jellyfish broader than itself; after 40 minutes, more than half had been ingested. A collected, 14-cm-wide individual kept in darkness at 6°C swallowed a 6-cm jellyfish completely within four hours. The field observations and feeding tests documented how this anemone consumes deep-water jellyfish.[3]

Conservation

A royal resolution establishing a marine protected area in Lurefjord and adjacent waters was issued in June 2020. The government document identified major works that alter the seabed, water exchange or currents—including dredging, depositing material and installing structures—as threats to the area’s conservation values. It also called for biodiversity surveys and monitoring to support management. These measures concern the wider marine habitat occupied by this species.[3][4]

Sources

  1. Catalogue of Life 2026-09-25 XR

    Catalogue of Life · 2026-10-13

  2. Trophic ecology, diet and feeding behaviour of three bathyal sea anemones (2022)

    Sun et al. / Deep Sea Research Part I · 2026-10-13

  3. Actinostola callosa (Verrill, 1882) (Actinostolidae, Anthozoa), a medusivorous sea anemone and its mass occurrence in the Lurefjord, Norway

    Gerhard Jarms, Henry Tiemann / Helgoland Marine Research 58:15–17, February 2004; online 10 September 2003, DOI 10.1007/s10152-003-0158-y · 2026-10-23

  4. Forskrift om vern av Lurefjorden og Lindåsosane marine verneområde

    Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment / Royal resolution 23 June 2020, PDF section 1.4 p.5 / 4.1.6 p.12 · 2026-10-23

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