Mertens anemone
| Mertens anemone | ||||||||||||
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Mertens anemone ( Stichodactyla mertensii ) with Amphiprion sandaracinos |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Stichodactyla mertensii | ||||||||||||
| Brandt , 1835 |
Mertens anemone ( Stichodactyla mertensii ) is a sea anemone from the tropical coral reefs of the Indo-Pacific . It is considered the largest of all sea anemones.
distribution
In the Indian Ocean it lives in the coral reefs on the coasts of East Africa and Madagascar to the southern Andaman Sea and the coast of Indonesia , but not in the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf . In the Pacific , it inhabits the coasts of Indonesia, the Philippines , Taiwan , and the waters around New Guinea , the Solomon Islands , Vanuatus , the Fiji Islands and the north coast of Australia with the exception of the Gulf of Carpentaria .
features
Mertens anemone is white, green or yellow-brown in color. Their folded, more oval than round mouth disc reaches a diameter of up to 1.5 meters. Tentacles come in two forms, short ones, only one to two centimeters long, which have the same color as the mouth disc and tentacles that are a few, five centimeters or longer and whose ends are white, yellow or green. Around the mouth there is a tentacle-free zone with a diameter of two to five centimeters. The nettle power of the anemone is very weak.
Way of life
Mertens anemone does not live on sandy soils like their relatives, Stichodactyla gigantea and Stichodactyla haddoni , but prefers crevices in rock and coral reefs as a location. In case of danger, it slowly withdraws into the gap.
It lives in symbiosis with zooxanthellae , from which it gets some of the nutrients it needs. On the other hand, Mertens anemone is a symbiotic anemone and an important symbiotic partner of anemonefish . They accept a total of twelve species of anemonefish as partners. Melanism often occurs among the symbiotic partners of Mertens Anemone for unknown reasons .
In the saltwater aquarium , Mertens anemone is sensitive and hardly durable.
literature
- Daphne G. Fautin, Gerald R. Allen : Anemonefish and their hosts , Melle: Tetra-Verlag 1994, ISBN 3-89356-171-4
Web links
- Hexacorallians of the World Stichodactyla mertensii
- Mertens anemone in the seawater lexicon