The dahlia anemone (''Urticina felina'') is a sea anemone found in the north

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

, the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

and the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and ...

. Its colour is variable, from deep red to brown or purplish, with green spots and darker tentacles. Dahlia anemones live attached to rock on the

seabed The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of ...

from the lower tidal limit down to a depth of 100 m and also attached to other organisms. Their diet comprises small

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...

and

crustaceans Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean gro ...

, which they immobilize by firing groups of stinging cells (

cnidae A cnidocyte (also known as a cnidoblast or nematocyte) is an explosive cell containing one large secretory organelle called a cnidocyst (also known as a cnida () or nematocyst) that can deliver a sting to other organisms. The presence of this ce ...

) into them. Dahlia anemones are closely related to mottled anemones, and both species are usually referred to as northern red anemones.

Description

The base is up to 120 mm across and firmly adherent to the rock. Deep sea specimens are usually larger than inshore ones. The column is usually shorter than its diameter and its surface is covered in verrucae. There is a parapet at the top where the verrucae tend to be organised into rows. The verrucae usually have bits of gravel and debris attached to them and the contracted anemone has the appearance of a rounded hummock of gravel. The disc is not broader than the parapet and has up to 160 short

tentacle In zoology, a tentacle is a flexible, mobile, and elongated organ present in some species of animals, most of them invertebrates. In animal anatomy, tentacles usually occur in one or more pairs. Anatomically, the tentacles of animals work ma ...

s arranged in multiples of ten. The colour is very variable; some individuals have a red column with green blotches, grey verrucae and greyish banded tentacles; others have a red column and disc with grey verrucae and white tentacles. The tentacles are often banded and in many individuals there are thin red lines on the disc visible between the tentacles.''Urticina felina''
Marine Species Identification Portal. Retrieved 2011-09-01.

Distribution

Dahlia anemones are found in the Arctic Ocean, the

, the

and the northern Atlantic Ocean as far south as the Bay of Biscay and the

Gulf of Maine , image = , alt = , caption = , image_bathymetry = GulfofMaine2.jpg , alt_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = Major features of the Gulf of Maine , location = Northeast coast of the ...

Habitat

Dahlia anemones are found on rocks and boulders from the lower shore down to depths of 100 metres. It occurs in rock pools, in crevices and gullies, among the holdfasts of ''

Laminaria ''Laminaria'' is a genus of brown seaweed in the order Laminariales (kelp), comprising 31 species native to the north Atlantic and northern Pacific Oceans. This economically important genus is characterized by long, leathery laminae and relati ...

spp.'', in caves and partly buried in gravel.

References

*Wildlife Fact File, 1996, Card #15

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dahlia anemone Actiniidae Cnidarians of the Atlantic Ocean Marine fauna of Europe Marine fauna of North America Animals described in 1761 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus