Anemones

These Dahlia Anemones were a spectacular sight, I saw them all on the same dive just off the mouth of the River Otter at Budleigh, it was like a huge garden bursting into bloom.

Their elegance is quite decieving as they are very capable predators and once in the grasp of their tentacles it's the end for many shrimps, prawns and even fish. In a picture below, the pink one is munching on a piece of seaweed.

I have been told by a local fisherman that all the debris around them that looks like breakfast cereal in these pictures is in fact dead coral that has been smashed up by the many trawlers out in the bay and washed in over the years.

  1. View DAHLIA ANEMONE
  2. View DAHLIA ANEMONE
  3. View DAHLIA ANEMONE
  4. View DAHLIA ANEMONE
  5. View DAHLIA ANEMONE
  6. View DAHLIA ANEMONE
  7. View DAHLIA ANEMONE
  8. View DAHLIA ANEMONE
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  10. View DAHLIA ANEMONE
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  12. View DAHLIA ANEMONE
  1. View DAHLIA ANEMONE-closed

The image above is a Dahlia Anemone that has retracted, you will notice that it has allowed the bits of shell and debris around to stick to it, this helps to camouflage it when required.

  1. View SNAKELOCKS
  2. View SNAKELOCKS
  3. View SNAKELOCKS
  4. View SNAKELOCKS
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  1. View SNAKELOCKS

Snakelocks Anemones prefer shallow light conditions you can sometimes see hundreds together looking like fields of grass swaying in the wind as the current moves them. The two snakelocks, far right are feeding, top on weed, lower have caught a Compass Jelly. Above is a gully full of Snakelocks with a Ballan Wrasse swimming through at Babbacombe.

Hitching a ride below are Paracitic Anemones on the Hermit Crab and Plumose Anemones on the Spider Crabs.

The two images below are Strawberry Anemones one open and one retracted.

  1. View PARASITIC ANEMONE
  2. View PARASITIC ANEMONE
  3. View PLUMOSE ANEMONE
  4. View PLUMOSE ANEMONE
  5. View PLUMOSE ANEMONE
  1. View STRAWBERRY ANEMONE
  2. View STRAWBERRY ANEMONE

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