Pacific Tube Anemone

SCIENTIFIC NAME:
Pachycerianthus fimbriatus

🇪🇸 Common name (ES): Anémona de tubo del Pacífico

🇺🇸 Common name (EN): Pacific Tube Anemone

CLASSIFICATION

Phylum:

Cnidaria

Class:

Anthozoa

Order:

Ceriantharia

Family:

Cerianthidae

Genus:

Pachycerianthus

Species:

Pachycerianthus fimbriatus

DISTRIBUTION IN COSTA RICA

●  1 – Bat Islands
●  2 – Gulf of Papagayo
●  3 – Catalina Islands
●  4 – Osa Peninsula
●  5 – Golfo Dulce
●  6 – Cocos Island

DEPTH RANGE

General: 1–40 m (3–131 ft)

Common: 5–25 m (16–82 ft)

    

 

HABITAT

Rocky reefs, mixed bottoms, caves, crevices and rubble.

HOW TO IDENTIFY IT

  • Column length: up to 30 cm (11.8 in).
  • Tube diameter: 1–3 cm (0.4–1.2 in).
  • Long, slender, translucent tentacles, often with bands or purple tips.
  • Oral disc with brown or orange radial lines.
  • Whitish to beige column with lines or spots.
  • Lives inside a rigid tube that may be covered with sand, shells and algae.

SIMILAR SPECIES

  • Feather Duster Worm (Sabella sp.): A marine polychaete worm, rather than an anemone, with feather-like tentacles that retract into a tube.

SIGHTING FREQUENCY

  • ●●○○○ Regular

 

 

REPRODUCTION

  • Sexual maturity is reached when the column is 5–10 cm (2–3.9 in) tall.
  • Hermaphroditic, with external fertilization.
  • Releases eggs and sperm into the water, where fertilization occurs.
  • Planula larvae swim freely before settling and forming a tube.

 

 

BEHAVIOR

  • Usually solitary.
  • Retracts its tentacles during the day and can close the entrance to its tube.
  • Extends its tentacles at night to capture food.

 

 

DIET

  • Carnivorous.
  • Captures small fish, shrimp, larvae and plankton with tentacles equipped with cnidocytes (stinging cells).