Anthopleura artemisia (Pickering in Dana, 1848)

Common name(s): Burrowing anemone, Burrowing green anemone, Buried anemone, Moonglow anemone
Synonyms:
Phylum Cnidaria
 Class Anthozoa
  Subclass Zoantharia
   Order Actniniaria
    Family Actiniidae
Anthopleura artemisia, photographed at San Simeon, CA.  Diameter approx. 8 cm.  See below for a view of the column of this anemone after the sand was dug away
Photo by: Dave Cowles
Description: Typically lives partly buried in sand or shells but base of column is attached to a rock under the sediment.  No acontia.  Tubercles and symbionts are restricted to the upper two thirds of the column (symbionts are also in tentacles) so lower part of column is smooth and white or pink (photo, photo).  Oral disk may be bright pink, orange, or green.  Tentacles may be solidly colored or banded, and may be red, white, black, blue, gray, brown, or green (in SE Alaska they are usually green).  The bands on tentacles (if present) are usually white.  The margins of the oral disk contain white spherules for fighting, as do the other Anthopleura species (these spherules are often hard to see).

How to Distinguish from Similar Species: Both A. elegantissima and A. xanthogrammica have tubercles and symbionts all the way to the bottom of the column, and live on rock or protrude through only a little sand. Some sources say that A. artemisia does not have symbiotic algae.

Geographical Range:  Alaska to southern California.  Very common around Juneau, Alaska.

Depth Range:  Low intertidal and subtidal to about 30 meters

Habitat:  Open coast and (more often) in protected bays, prefers habitats with rocks or cobble buried in sand.

Biology/Natural History:  Normally only the tentacles and oral disk are exposed, with the rest of the anemone buried in the sediment.  This species is capable of greatly elongating.  At low tide the anemone may withdraw below the surface of the sediment.  Sometimes they live in holes made by boring clams.  Individuals are solitary as in A. xanthogrammica, but they can divide asexually by longitudinal fission as in A. elegantissima.  They will attack other individuals who are nearby using their special white spherule tentacles.  I find this species much less commonly than the two other species.  Some references say they contain algal symbionts, but some recent information suggests that they do not.  In British Columbia this species has been observed feeding on spawned herring eggs.
Types of cnidae in A. artemisia:  Spirocysts, atrichs, basitrichs, and microbasic p-mastigophores.


 
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References:

Dichotomous Keys:
Kozloff 1987, Marine Invertebrates of the Pacific Northwest
Smith and Carlton, 1975.  Light's Manual: Intertidal Invertebrates of the Central California Coast

General References:
Morris, Abbott, and Haderlie, 1980.  Intertidal Invertebrates of California.  Stanford University Press.
O’Clair and O’Clair, 1998.  Southeast Alaska’s Rocky Shores.  Plant Press.
Flora and Fairbanks, 1966.  The Sound and the Sea
Kozloff, 1993, Seashore Life of the Northern Pacific Coast

Scientific Articles:

Hand, Cadet, 1955.  The sea anemones of central California part II.  The endomyarian and mesomyarian anemones.  The Wasmann Journal of Biology 13:1 pp. 37-99


General Notes and Observations:  Locations, abundances, unusual behaviors, etc.:
  This species seems to be much less common than either A. elegantissima or A. xanthogrammica, at least south of Alaska.



The same individual as above after digging the sand and shells away and exposing the rock it was attached to.  Shows the column with its light color and lack of verrucae.


This individual was buried in find sand/mud and attached to a shell at Guemes Channel near Guemes Ferry, Anacortes, WA.  Photo by Dave Cowles, July 2005



This photo shows the column and tubercles of the Guemes Channel individual above.
Photo by Dave Cowles, July 2005 

In crevice

This small individual was photographed in a crevice on a boulder high in the intertidal (but subject to frequent wave spray and runoff) on Beach #4 near Kalaloch, WA.
Photograph by Dave Cowles.  See finger for scale.


Authors and Editors of Page:
Dave Cowles, 2004, 2005