These beautiful invertebrates live in oceans throughout the world, from the warm waters of the tropics as well as at the North and South poles. They attach themselves to hard surfaces such as rocks, shells and submerged timbers.

Although Sea Anemones look like flowers, they are predatory animals. These invertebrates have no skeleton at all.

Anemones do not grow in colonies because it is typically a single polyp, and they grow as individual animals. They have a round or cylindrical shape that attaches to usually a solid base at one end and the mouth and tentacles flow in the current at the other.

Most of these anemones remain stationary throughout their life however some do move slowly by creeping around the rocks. Also sometimes Hermit Crabs attach Sea Anemones to their shells for camouflage.

These anemones grow in the range of very tiny 1 cm up to around 3' or 1 metre across (these are in the tropics).

Anemones are also often brightly coloured with creams, reds, oranges, blues, yellows, browns and greens.

Many anemones are filter feeders however some love to eat or digest small fish. They catch food using the tentacles, which have poisonous stingers (called nematocysts).

The anemone body is simply a stomach and a mouth in which food and it's waste passes. This mouth is surrounded by stinging tentacles that are used to paralyse prey (food) before it is digested. In saying this some anemones are used as homes to fish like the clown fish. These fish have some sort of immune system to the stinging tentacles of the anemone.(these clown fish are not found in New Zealand waters though, they are found in the tropics).