Appearance and lifestyle:
Strawberry anemones, Corynactis annulata, are brightly coloured colonial anthozoans. Despite their common name, they aren’t true anemones - they are corallimorphs, meaning they are closely related to anemones and corals. Strawberry anemones are usually present in a range of red and pink, but purple, brown, yellow, or almost white colonies also occur. Strawberry anemones have transparent or white tentacles with bulbous tips that cannot fully retract.
Individual anemones are around 2.5 cm tall, while colonies can reach widths of 20m as they carpet the seafloor. They reproduce asexually and sexually, although they can cover more available ground when reproducing asexually.
Habitat:
These anemones can live up to 50m deep on vertical rock walls or at the bottom of kelp forests. They live around the southern African coast from Port Nolloth to Mossel Bay, as well as in the Inaccessible Archipelago in the southern Atlantic Ocean.
Diet:
Strawberry anemones feed on crustaceans, copepods, larvae, and invertebrates. They use tiny specialised stinging cells called nematocysts to capture their prey as it drifts past.
Threats:
Pollution, habitat loss, climate change etc.