Floating Anemones

Hey everyone, over the past month our iNaturalist contributors have more than tripled! We are all so grateful and excited to see what you find!

This week I wanted to talk about one of the less well-known creatures that live at the ocean’s surface, the floating sea anemones. These anemones are in the genus Actinecta and they don’t have a common name, they are only referred to as their scientific names. These creatures have a float at their base that allows them to live at the surface of the ocean, hanging upside down and catching prey with their tentacles. They are a pretty rare find but sometimes they can be found in the open ocean or washed ashore.

Happy Halloween weekend!
-Ari Puentes

Posted on October 29, 2021 06:51 PM by goseascience goseascience

Comments

Never heard of these. Are they confined to the North Atlantic?
We have not seen them on our projects: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/blue-community-s-afr
From what I can see they are quite localized; https://inaturalist.org/taxa/1210955-Actinecta

Posted by tonyrebelo over 2 years ago

Hi Tony! They are not commonly found, therefore their exact distribution is unknown but they are more commonly seen in the Southern Hemisphere.

Posted by goseascience over 2 years ago

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