Sea Anemone

With its radiant color and plantlike shape, the sea anemone looks more like a flower than an animal. More specifically, the sea anemone is formed quite like the flower for which it is named, with a body like a stem and tentacles like petals in brilliant shades of blue, green, pink and red. Its diameter varies from about six millimeters in some species to more than ninety centimeters in the giant varieties of Australia. Like corals, hydras, and jellyfish, sea anemones are coelenterates. They can move slowly, but more often they attach the lower part of their cylindrical bodies to racks, shells, or wharf pilings. The upper end of the sea anemone has a mouth surrounded by tentacles that the animal uses to capture its food. Stinging cells in the tentacles throw out tiny poison threads that paralyze other small sea animals. The tentacles then drag this pray into the sea anemone's mouth. The food is digested in the large inner body cavity. When disturbed, a sea anemone retracts its tentacles and shortens its body so that it resembles a lump on a rock. Anemones may produce by forming eggs, dividing in half, or developing buds that grow and break off as independent animals.