A carpet anemone with short, densely packed tentacles forming a flat sticky mat on shallow rock.
To about 20 cm across, a flat mat of short, densely packed tentacles, usually pale brown or green, on shallow rock and rubble.
It is a carpet anemone and the tentacles are sticky as well as stinging: they hold onto skin, so contact is not brief. The sting is painful and raises a lasting welt, and the animal grows in water shallow enough to stand in, which is where the injuries come from. It hosts cleaner shrimps and small fish, and searching one is worthwhile as long as it is done with the eyes.
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.
