Let's start with the smaller one: the pink-tipped anemone (Anthopleura elegantissima). This anemone clones itself into big colonies. Sometimes they are densely packed. There’s no aggression against each other, but they do war against other colonies.
A lot of closed pink-tipped anemones at low water.
The irregular way the tubercles are arranged on their column are a distinctive feature of the pink-tipped.
The pink-tipped anemone and green surf anemone next to each other.
The green surf anemone (Anthopleura xanthogrammica). The sea anemone referred to on the website of the Wickaninnish Inn (see the previous message) is probably the green surf anemone. It’s the most obvious of the two: it has a jade-green colour and it is large. I found specimens up to12 cm, but it can be as large as 30 cm. The pink-tipped anemone can also be quite large, but most specimens were 3 to 6 cm.
So yes, you can find Anthopleura elegantissima on the shores of the Wickaninnish, but it is impossible to oversee Anthopleura xanthogrammica!
This is one of my favourite pictures of marine life I took on Vancouver Island. So if you don’t like it, you better quit my blog :-)
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