I've probably brought this up so many times that you guys are probably sick of it, but I have proof now! I finally caught my weirdo little anemone's angry response to being bumped lightly...proof that I'm not insane!
Normal, happy appearance (taken tonight):
That is an Aptaisia in front...not the same species (I've let a few get big to see, but clearly not the same even when larger)
A couple seconds after being accently bumped by a macro algae stem while I was trying to feed my snails...
These things are put out extreemly quickly and only left out for a few seconds. Now that my nem is big enough and has moved up the side of the tank, I've established that the filaments are contained rolled up in pockets (visible under bright enough light since the whole thing is largely transparent) in the body wall but not in the digestive cavity. They are extruded and retraced through what look like little pores in the skin just below the last row of tentacles. Although I've never been touched by one of the filaments, I've seen them kill other unsuspecting inverts and injure pest nems that get too close. Now, that's great and everything, but I still can't find anything that shows that sort of anatomical feature on an anemone. Not in books, not on anything I've found on the web or in article searching. So, after seeing this a jillion times with accidental nem bumpings, I'm still left at the "WTF?!" stage. Now that I have a photo of the filaments, do they look familiar to anyone?
I will try to get a clearer picture of the filament out-putting, but it's tough because the anemone does it so fast and doesn't hold still enough for my camera.
BTW I know it looks really sickly in the filament-extruding picture, but it's was back to looking like the first pic by the time I had gotten the pictures onto the computer. Those two photos were taken about 2 minutes apart.
Normal, happy appearance (taken tonight):
That is an Aptaisia in front...not the same species (I've let a few get big to see, but clearly not the same even when larger)
A couple seconds after being accently bumped by a macro algae stem while I was trying to feed my snails...
These things are put out extreemly quickly and only left out for a few seconds. Now that my nem is big enough and has moved up the side of the tank, I've established that the filaments are contained rolled up in pockets (visible under bright enough light since the whole thing is largely transparent) in the body wall but not in the digestive cavity. They are extruded and retraced through what look like little pores in the skin just below the last row of tentacles. Although I've never been touched by one of the filaments, I've seen them kill other unsuspecting inverts and injure pest nems that get too close. Now, that's great and everything, but I still can't find anything that shows that sort of anatomical feature on an anemone. Not in books, not on anything I've found on the web or in article searching. So, after seeing this a jillion times with accidental nem bumpings, I'm still left at the "WTF?!" stage. Now that I have a photo of the filaments, do they look familiar to anyone?
I will try to get a clearer picture of the filament out-putting, but it's tough because the anemone does it so fast and doesn't hold still enough for my camera.
BTW I know it looks really sickly in the filament-extruding picture, but it's was back to looking like the first pic by the time I had gotten the pictures onto the computer. Those two photos were taken about 2 minutes apart.
