The sea anemone Stomphia coccinea, when touched by certain starfishes, frees itself from the substratum, and by a series of waving motions propels itself through the water. This locomotion has been studied by means of direct observation and by analysis of time-lapse, and normal-speed motion-picture films. Ecological observations and stimulation tests made in the natural environment of the anemo...

In this Collective Article on alien and cryptogenic diversity in the Mediterranean Sea we report a total of 19 species belonging to nine Phyla coming from countries. Several these records concern fish species, particular interest are first of: Terapon puta for Italian waters; Pteragopus trispilus Malta; Plotosus lineatus Cyprus; northernmost record Lagocephalus sceleratus. The was also reported...

It is well-known to swimmers, divers, and beachgoers that coelenterates such as the Portuguese man-of-war (Physalia physalis), true jellyfish such as the box jellyfish, sea anemone, true coral, and fire coral can inflict painful and sometimes fatal stings. As a result, these organisms are avoided by humans and most sea creatures; however, indirect contact with the skin may occur. For example, c...

Apical organs are sensory structures present in many marine invertebrate larvae where they are considered to be involved in their settlement, metamorphosis and locomotion. In bilaterians they are characterised by a tuft of long cilia and receptor cells and they are associated with groups of neurons, but their relatively low morphological complexity and dispersed phylogenetic distribution have l...

Abstract Animals are faced with a fundamental risk-reward trade-off when making decisions about foraging in the presence of predation, yet little is known how social, reproductive and environmental factors mediate this trade-off. In marine environment, anemonefishes provide model system for investigating determinants risk–reward trade-offs, because they live size- sex-structured groups within p...

Exaiptasia is a laboratory sea anemone model system for stony corals. Two clonal strains are commonly used, referred to as H2 and CC7, that originate from two genetically distinct lineages and that differ in their Symbiodinium specificity. However, little is known about their other microbial associations. Here, we examined and compared the taxonomic composition of the bacterial assemblages of t...

In contrast to the many studies on the venoms of scorpions, spiders, snakes and cone snails, up to now there has been no report of the proteomic analysis of sea anemones venoms. In this work we report for the first time the peptide mass fingerprint and some novel peptides in the neurotoxic fraction (Fr III) of the sea anemone Bunodosoma cangicum venom. Fr III is neurotoxic to crabs and was puri...