Edwardsia neozelanica

E. neozelanica is found in New Zealand, in intertidal areas such as harbour mouths or rock pools where silt and mud accumulates.[1] Being small and so similar in colour to the substrate it lives in, E. neozelanica is a cryptic species most often found when sand or mud is passed through a fine sieve.[1]

Illustrations of E. neozelanica by Farquhar that accompanied its 1898 description. The tentacle-fringed capitulum and three-part body can be clearly seen.

This tiny anemone has a diameter of just 5 millimetres and a length of 30–50 millimetres.[2][3] Its long worm-like body is divided into three parts: physa, scapus, and capitulum. The physa is a bulbous bladder-like organ covered with tiny suckers, used in burrowing.[4] The scapus or body column is wrinkly and covered with a rough cuticle that can be brown, grey, or orange in colour, with a narrow neck at the top connecting it to the capitulum or oral end.[4]

E. neozelanica has on its capitulum sixteen or more transparent tentacles, usually in two whorls of eight, that are pinkish white to buff yellow or brown in colour.[3][4] Each tentacle in the outer whorl corresponds with one of eight brown lines that originate on the scapus as longitudinal double white lines.

This worm-like sea anemone thrusts its body into soft mud or sand before anchoring itself in place by slightly swelling its body column.[3] Only its oral disc and tentacles are visible above the silt. It feeds on organic detritus, extending its fine tentacles across the surface of the sediment.[3]