Discover the colorful world of the Sea Anemone
Everybody has seen the film Nemo, the small clownfish living in a beautiful sea anemone.
The many appearances of the sea anemone
When it comes to anemones, the quality of the water makes a massive difference to the health and happiness of these little creatures! Oxygen-rich water with little debris will make them flourish.
You find sea anemones on almost all dive sites. As they are often located under rocks or in cracks, you will need to look to find them.
Scuba Diving
Anemones are carnivorous, feeding on tiny plankton or fish. Their stinging tentacles are triggered by the slightest touch, firing a harpoon-like filament called a nematocyst into their prey. Once injected with the paralyzing neurotoxin, the prey is guided into the mouth by the tentacles.
Remember, we never touch anything while diving! Most are not harmful for humans or only cause mild dermatitis. A few species possess highly toxic venoms and are hazardous for humans. You better look out. Initialy you feel a prickly sensation to severe burning at the wound site. The pain increases in intensity and may extend proximally into local lymph nodes. After a few hours, the pain lessens, but a residual ache or itch may last for weeks. The skin reaction varies by sea anemone species.
More Information
We get many questions about what there is to see when you go diving in the south of Gran Canaria. We want to respond to this by creating a number of articles where each highlights a specific species we regularly encounter when diving in the Atlantic. The complete series gives you a good idea of what to find when scuba diving in the blue waters of the south of Gran Canaria. Let’s be clear we are not marine biologists; just a dive centre trying to provide valuable information to our customers.
For the full details of the species we would like to refer to www.Wikipedia.com. Here you’ll find more detail than we go into.
