A tale of two anemones

Over the Memorial Day weekend I took my students out on the early morning low tides at Natural Bridges State Beach.  While they were ooh-ing and ahh-ing and filling out their assignment worksheet, I was playing around with my new camera, taking pictures in the water.  Because I am not a photographer and sea anemones just sit there, they quickly became my favorite subjects.  Not to mention the fact that they are simply  beautiful and photogenic creatures.

At Natural Bridges we have four species of anemones in the genus Anthopleura:

• A. xanthogrammica – giant green anemone
• A. sola – sunburst anemone
• A. elegantissima – aggregating anemone
• A. artemisia – moonglow anemone

Of these species, the first two are notable for their large size.  At Natural Bridges they can get to be the size of a dinner plate.  They live side-by-side in tidepools, and since there are many deep-ish pools at Natural Bridges they are among the most conspicuous animals in the intertidal along the northern California coast.

It’s easy to identify these animals when they’re sitting right next to each other.  The difficulty comes when you see only one in a pool by itself with nothing to compare it to.  In a nutshell, here are some things you can use as clues to determine which species you have in front of you.

Let’s start with Anthopleura xanthogrammica, the giant green anemone.  This animal’s oral surface and tentacles are a solid color, varying from bright green to golden brown.  There are no conspicuous stripes on the central disc and the tentacles are relatively short and stubby, without any white patches.

Anthopleura sola, on the other hand, usually has distinctive radiating lines on the oral disc.  Hence the common name of Sunburst Anemone.  Its tentacles are generally longer and more slender than those of A. xanthogrammica, and often have sharp-edged white patches.  Sometimes the tips of the tentacles are tinged a pale purple.  Anthopleura sola are usually brownish-green in color, and I haven’t seen any that are as bright green as the A. xanthogrammica anemones.

That’s all well and good, but sometimes you come across an individual that doesn’t completely follow the rules.  Or rather, it looks like it could belong to both species. Such as this fellow (fella?):

The animals obviously don’t read the descriptions.  This one has xanthogrammica shape and overall color, but those lines on the disc read as sola-ish.  I would call this one a xanthogrammica.  What do you think?