Phylum: Cnidaria, Class: Anthozoa, Order; Actinaria (Anemones), Family: Actinodendronidae.

Actinostephanus haeckeli    

DISTRIBUTION: Western Pacific Ocean

HABITAT; Found on sandy bottoms in lagoons and bays with 12 or more tentacles, and buried during day and active at night.

APPEARANCE: 10-20cm in diameter. It has about 12 long fat cylindrical tentacles that taper at the tips, and below these, another ring of much shorter, slimmer tentacles. The tentacles are studded with bumps. They have a and a flat oral disc. Those seen were a uniform dark brown to black.

DIET: Plankton. 

REMARKS: This anemone could be confused with sea stars.  The projections are tentacles not arms.  they reach out of the mud and sand in which the anemone lives.   

They can move fairly rapidly along the ocean floor leaving a trail in the sand.   

Venoms Cluster PR 25      11-17-11

WORDPRESS BLOG  http://wp.me/p1DZ4b-ho

Flickr sea anemone series.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/cas_docents/sets/72157625127345346/