Fish Eating Anemone

Urticina piscivora

Fish Eating Anemone

Urticina piscivora

Other Common Names
Fish-eating Urticina, rose anemone, velvety red anemone, fish-eating tealia

Rocky Coast, Orford Reef

Other Common Names

Fish-eating Urticina, rose anemone, velvety red anemone, fish-eating tealia

At the Aquarium

Rocky Coast, Orford Reef

Appearance

Fish-eating anemones have a smooth orange-red column with sturdy white tentacles, sometimes tipped with pink or red. The oral disc is red to pale orange and there are red markings at the base of each tentacle. The tentacles can reach a maximum length of nearly 14 inches. There are ~5 rows of sticky verrucae on the upper column. The disc is 8-10 inches wide and the column is up to 8 inches tall.

Habitat

Rocky bottoms from the low intertidal to depths of 160 feet, usually where there’s a current, often found in kelp forests

Diet

Fishes, shrimps, and other invertebrates

Life History

Fish-eating anemones can reproduce asexually by splitting.

They reproduce sexually by broadcasting spawning eggs or sperm in the water column. The planula larva is planktonic.

They can reach 12 inches tall and they live up to 80 years.

IUCN Status

Not Evaluated

Ecosystem & Cultural Importance

Juvenile painted greenlings will rest or swim among the tentacles of a fish-eating anemone at night. Predators include the leather star.

Alaska to southern California

If you’re lucky, you might encounter one in a deep tidepool.

Though this anemone can’t swim, it is able to move. It will inflate itself, detach its base from the substrate, and allow the current to carry it. If a predator, like the leather star, touches a small or intermediate sized anemone (up to 5 inches), they may try to escape using this method. However, if a leather star tries to attack a larger fish-eating anemone, it might detach but then flip over onto the leather star and start to ingest it.

Citations & Other Resources

Houtman, R., et al. “Feeding and predator-avoidance by the rose anemone Urticina piscivora.” Marine Biology 128 (1997): 225-229.
Invertebrates of the Salish Sea
Lamb, Andy, and Bernard P. Hanby., inchesMarine Life of the Pacific Northwest: A Photographic Encyclopedia of Invertebrates, Seaweeds, and Selected Fishes.inches Harbour Publ, 2009.
Aquarium of the Pacific

Fish Eating Anemone

Fish Eating Anemone

Other Common Names

At the Aquarium

Appearance

Habitat

Diet

Life History

IUCN Status

Ecosystem & Cultural Importance

Citations & Other Resources

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