Ceriantheopsis americana
Close-up of the crown;
the outer whorl of tentacles are large and the inner whorl small
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Cnidaria
Subclass: Ceriantharia
Order: Spirularia
Family: Cerianthidae
Genus: Ceriantheopsis
Species:
C. americana
Binomial name
Ceriantheopsis americana
(Agassiz in Verrill, 1864)[1]
Synonyms
  • Ceriantheopsis americanus

Ceriantheopsis americana is a species of tube-dwelling anemone in the family Cerianthidae. It is a burrowing species and lives in deep sand or muddy sand in a long slender tube that it creates.

Description

Ceriantheopsis americana is a large tube-dwelling anemone. The crown of tentacles can have a diameter of up to 10 cm (4 in) and project for 10 cm above the surface of the sediment.[2] This anemone has a slender, elongated body and creates a tough, felted, leathery tube to line its burrow, using discharged cnidocytes stuck together with mucus and incorporating sand grains on the outer surface. The tube is orientated vertically in the sediment, with a maximum length of about 35 cm (14 in). There is often a connecting short lateral tube branching off near the upper end. The top entrance is somewhat elastic and is up to 1.5 cm (0.6 in) in diameter, and the tube narrows towards the base.[3]

Distribution and habitat

Ceriantheopsis americana is native to the western Atlantic Ocean where it occurs between Maine and Cape Hatteras in the United States.[4] It occurs in soft substrates in the sublittoral zone and the lowest parts of the littoral zone in sheltered areas, being most common just below the low tide mark.[3]

Ecology

During the day the anemone retreats into its tube and closes the entrance. As evening approaches and at night, it extends its crown of tentacles and spreads the longer tentacles around the tube entrance.[3] It is a predator and mostly feeds on calanoid copepods, which are planktonic, and harpacticoid copepods, which are bottom-dwellers. It also consumes barnacles, amphipods and gastropod molluscs.[4]

Ceriantheopsis americana is plentiful in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island but was overlooked for a long time, probably because of its habit of retreating into its burrow when disturbed. In this location it appears to no longer be present after mid August but then reappears in mid-October.[2] It seems likely that its apparent disappearance is due to it burrowing more deeply into the substrate in that period in order to avoid being eaten by scup (Stenotomus chrysops) when the schools of young fish move inshore. When the fish depart again in the fall, the anemone reappears, at similar sizes and densities to its situation before. Examination of the stomach contents of young scup reinforce this hypothesis.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Molodtsova, Tina (2015). "Ceriantheopsis americana (Agassiz in Verrill, 1864)". WoRMS. World Register of Marine Species. Retrieved 2018-09-17.
  2. 1 2 Holohan, B.; Klos, E (1995). "Observations on the ecology of the burrowing mud anemone, Ceriantheopsis americanus, in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island". Rubicon Foundation Archive. Rubicon Foundation. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved 2015-06-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  3. 1 2 3 Frey, Robert W. (1970). "The Lebensspuren of Some Common Marine Invertebrates near Beaufort, North Carolina. II. Anemone Burrows". Journal of Paleontology. 44 (2): 308–311. JSTOR 1302545.
  4. 1 2 3 Holohan, Bridget A.; Klos, Eric G.; Oviatt, Candace A. (1998). "Population Density, Prey Selection, and Predator Avoidance of the Burrowing Anemone (Ceriantheopsis americanus) in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island". Estuaries. 21 (3): 466–469. doi:10.2307/1352844. JSTOR 1352844.
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