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Monday, May 30, 2022

Eggs in neon

  

After field work this morning, I noticed a couple of Giant Green Anemones (Anthopleura xanthogrammica) were spawning, so I took a couple of quick photos for the record.

Sometimes spawning is triggered by a large change in water temperature.  During the past week we saw extremely cold temperatures  of ~8.5°C (~47°F), and then when the winds dropped temperatures rose to ~12.5°C (~54.5°F). 

Here's a close-up of the eggs:

 
 
And a zoomed out view of the entire female anemone with the beige eggs accumulated on the lower edge of her oral disc:

 
 
 
There were a few males spawning, too:
 
 
P.S.  I haven't seen anemones spawning that often, but I wrote about another observation back in 2013.  See "Fortuitous" on 28 June 2013 and "Little narwhals" on 23 July 2013 (the latter includes photos of anemone larvae).

3 comments:

adrienne said...

Of all underwater sea creatures I encountered diving, Anthopleura xanthogrammica was one name I committed to memory! Musical feel and sound to it; fun to say aloud. An impressive anemone,
and picture!

adrienne said...

"A few males spawning--" Please explain picture. Tank you. (Can't type letter after "g."

Jackie Sones said...

Hi, Adrienne,

The last picture shows a male anemone spawning, with white sperm on the oral disc. I saw a few other individual males spawning, but that photo only shows one. Does that help? Or just let me know if I didn't interpret your question correctly.

:) Jackie