Edwardsia neozelanica (Sea Anemones of New Zealand)

Edwardsia neozelanica

Description ⁴

Habitat
A simple burrowing anemone. Often only the oral disc and tentacles is visible above the silt. Found in areas where sand and silt accumulates.

Column
Grey or brown and wrinkled, bulbous near the base and a narrow 'scaphus' or neck at the top of the column, free of the sand/silt that adheres to the rest of the column. Less than 50mm long. There are 8 double white lines running up the column, turning into brown lines on the neck and correspond with each of the tentacles in the outer whorl.

Oral disc

Tentacles
16 fine tentacles on two whorls of 8, yellowish-brown in colour.

Distribution
Throughout NZ

Edited version of Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand 1868-1961, Volume 41, 1908, p378
Art. XXXVI.—A Review of the New Zealand Actiniaria known to Science, together with a Description of Twelve New Species.
By F. G. A. Stuckey, M.A. :

Edwardsia tricolor (nom. nov.), Farquhar, 1898.

This species (fig. 1) was described by Farquhar under the name Edwardsia elegans. I have changed the specific name to tricolor, the name elegans having been in use for another species since 1849. Mr. Farquhar has fully described the external appearance of this species, so I shall only briefly state my own observations. The body is brown, wrinkled, and covered with a rough cuticle, which is thin at the upper end. It is marked longitudinally by 8 double brown lines. There is a strong constriction between body and capitulum. The lower part of the capitulum is bulbous, and is divided into 8 segments by double white lines, continuous with the brown lines of the scapus. In colour each segment is brown, with a large white spot. Above this is a narrower white portion. The tentacles are in two cycles, 8 in each, those of the outer cycle corresponding to the white lines, those of the inner cycle to the interspaces. The tentacles are transparent, yellowish-brown in colour.

Distribution.—Of the genus—almost cosmopolitan. Of the species—Island Bay, Ohiro Bay.

Edwardsia ignota (sp. nov.).

The body is of the usual Edwardsian type, the physa, however, being rather reduced. The colour is a dirty white or light grey. The capitulum bears 8 light-brown lines. The tentacles are 8 in number, short and blunt. The disc is flattened and the mouth prominent. The scapus is naked, and the physa thin and rounded at the extremity. The animal collapsed when taken out of the water, but the capitulum was not introverted. Only one specimen was found, and on coming to section it I discovered that the body was full of sand, so that it was impossible to obtain any sections.

Distribution of the Species.—Island Bay.

References ⁴

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