the.com/anemone
a flower that's secretly an animal hunting fish with venom-tipped tentacles.
means A name shared by two unrelated things: a delicate spring-flowering plant of the buttercup family, and the soft-bodied, tentacled marine animal that anchors to rocks and stings its prey.
from From Greek 'anemōnē,' commonly linked to 'anemos,' meaning wind — hence the old English nickname 'windflower,' supposedly because the blossoms open when the wind blows. The flower came first; the sea creature borrowed the name in the 18th century because its waving tentacles, opening and swaying in the water, reminded naturalists of petals stirred by a breeze. So the 'wind' in the venomous predator is, fittingly, a flower's wind.
- actually animal
- Predatory cousin of jellyfish, not a plant
- clownfish deal
- Clownfish bribe immunity with mucus coating
- near-immortal
- Some clones may live hundreds of years
- venom sting
- Tentacles fire harpoon cells called nematocysts
- can walk
- They slowly creep, even somersault, when threatened
clownfish symbiosis — amphiprion ocellaris lives in entacmaea quadricolor anemones in the indo-pacific, protected from predators by the anemone's nematocysts
bubble-tip anemone — entacmaea quadricolor, a species from indo-pacific coral reefs commonly kept in aquariums, can grow to 10 inches
giant sea anemone — stichodactyla gigantea, found in indo-pacific reefs, reaches 3 feet diameter and hosts multiple clownfish species
beadlet anemone — actinia equina, common on european rocky shores from england to spain, survives out of water by closing its tentacles