A relative of the species from my last blogpost, the anemone featured today is called the magnificent anemone because of its large size, sometimes reaching a diameter of about 3 feet (1 meter). These giants are also typically colonized by one of several different clownfish species.
Found throughout the tropical Indo-Pacific, the magnificent anemone (Heteractis magnifica) is found from depths as shallow as 3 feet (1 meter) to as deep as 164 feet (50 meters) in clear, warm waters with strong currents. Like all other anemones, and all other members of the phylum Cnidaria (neye-dare-ee-ah), the tentacles are armed with stinging cells used to immobilize prey that is dragged into the central mouth.
I saw this anemone while on vacation in the Republic of Fiji in April 2015. We were diving at a site called Rainbow’s End on Rainbow Reef off the island of Vanua Levu, the second largest of the islands of the archipelago.
This photo was taken with a Canon EF100 mm f/2.8 macro lens on a Canon EOS 5D Mk. III in an Ikelite underwater housing. Light was provided by two Ikelite DS-161 strobes in eTTL exposure mode. The exposure was set to 1/60 sec at f/16 and ISO 1600.