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seagrass lagoon

Peacock anemones
Cerianthus sp.
Family Cerianthidae

Peacock anemones are plentiful on Chek Jawa. Besides the seagrass lagoon and coral rubble, they are also found on the sand bar. At low tide during a cool morning or evening, peacock anemones in a pool of water might continue to extend their tentacles. Otherwise, they are usually retracted into their tubes.

Peacock anemones belong to the same Class Anthozoa as sea anemones. Like sea anemones, peacock anemones are large, solitary polyps. Peacock anemones, however, build tubes to hide in. Their body columns are long, narrow and smooth. Being adapted to live in soft sediments, their body column doesn't end in a flattened pedal disc as in sea anemones. Instead, it has a rounded end which is used to burrow with.

Peacock Food: Peacock anemones feed on plankton at high tide. Unlike most other sea anemones, peacock anemones have two types of tentacles. The outer ring of longer tentacles gathers food and are called the marginal tentacles. The inner ring of shorter tentacles called the oral tentacles manipulates food into the mouth in the centre.

Safety Tube: Peacock anemones make tubes so they are also called tube anemones. A peacock anemone uses specialised stingers called ptychocysts to form its tube. Only peacock anemones have ptychocysts. Much of the soft, leathery tube is buried in the sediments. Strong muscles along the length of the column allows it disappear into its tube in a blink of an eye.

Colourful Peacocks: Peacock anemones are aptly named. They come in a myriad of colours and patterns.

Peacock Babies: Here is a photo of a tube anemone larva on Image Quest 3-D Marine Library

Weird Wormy Companion: Often found living near the tube of the peacock anemone are strange small, black creatures (fan diameter about 2cm). They have a double horse-shoe shaped spiral of feathery tentacles. These worm-like creatures belong to their own Phylum Phoronida and are possibly Phoronis sp. See below for a link to more on Phoronids.

quick facts
about 30cm tall and 10cm in diameter with tentacles expanded, common in everywhere on Chek Jawa

Classification:
Order Ceriantharia
Class Anthozoa
Phylum Cnidaria

See also ...
Cnidarians in general

Links
Cerianthus llodii from Picton, B.E. and Costello M. J. 1998. The BioMar biotope viewer: a guide to marine habitats, fauna and flora in Britain and Ireland, Environmental Sciences Unit, Trinity College, Dublin: a fact sheet with photo on a Cerianthus species found in Europe.
Phoronida on the Canada's Aquatic Environments webpage on the University of Guelph website: an easy introduction to the more technical aspects of their morphology, metabolism, reproduction, ecology with an interesting section on their idiosyncracies and photos.

Other references

Barnes, Robert D. & Ruppert, Edward E., 1996. Invertebrate Zoology. Harcourt College Publishers, 6th Edition. pp. 1056, G-1-16, I-1-30.
Pechenik, Jan A., 2000. Biology of the Invertebrates. McGraw-Hill Book Co., Singapore. 578 pp.
Wood, Elizabeth & Michael Aw, 2002. Reef Fishes, Corals and Invertebrates of Malaysia and the South China Sea. New Holland Publishers, UK. 144 pp.
Allen, Gerald, 1997. Tropical Marine Life of Malaysia and Singapore. Periplus Editions, Singapore. 64 pp.
Tan, Leo W. H. & Ng, Peter K. L., 1988. A Guide to Seashore Life. The Singapore Science Centre, Singapore. 160 pp. online version
Morten, Brian & John Morten, 1983. The Sea Shore Ecology of Hong Kong. Hong Kong University Press. 350 pp.

a companion website to the chek jawa guidebook website©ria tan 2003 www.wildsingapore.com

a companion website to the chek jawa guidebook
website©ria tan 2003 www.wildsingapore.com