The largest sea anemone, spreading over rock rather than sitting on sand.
To about 1.5 m across and the largest sea anemone recorded anywhere. The oral disc follows the contours of the rock it sits on rather than lying flat, and is covered in short, dense, slightly knobbed tentacles that give it a carpet texture. The column is usually hidden. Haddon’s carpet anemone is the confusion; it sits on sand rather than rock, spreads its disc flat, has markedly stickier tentacles, and is the one found in the middle of a muck site.
It hosts Clark’s and skunk anemonefish and carries porcelain crabs and anemone shrimps. It sticks firmly to anything that touches it, including a bare hand, which is the practical reason to keep clear rather than any real danger. Recorded from about 3 to 30 m.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.
