Clinocottus Globiceps + Anthopleura Xanthogrammica = Dinner

On my last trip collecting I brought home a good sized Mosshead Sculpin (Clinocottus Globiceps)


I also brought home quite a few Giant Green Anemones (Anthopleura Xanthogrammica)


Now most people would assume that a Giant green anemone would just swallow up a even a good sized sculpin right?

Wrong.

Turns out that the Mosshead Sculpin is one of a handful of predators that the Giant Greens have in the wild.

I couldn't figure out why a few anemones that I have had in the established lobster tank for over a year just completely closed up since I introduced all the new inhabitants. I had assumed maybe it was a nudibranch that I just had not seen yet or something, until I remembered a research paper I read online a while back when I was trying to identify the first mosshead sculpin I caught about a year ago.

Just to verify this, I moved the large mosshead into the newly established tank that is holding all of my Giant Green Anemones and within minutes he was taking bights of tentacles. So he has now been banished to the holding tank with all the little guys until I figure out what to do with him.

Certain types of snails (wentletraps) do the same thing.

Is he still exiled? If you ever set up a fuge that might be a good place for him.

Turned him into Anemone food, recycle, reduce, reuse

Ironic isn't it?

The fish that preys on the anemone becomes food for the anemone,

Ahhh the circle of life at its best,

Very ironic. The hunter becomes the hunted..

hunted by who? you?!!

Definitely not by me.

I am the Alpha and the Omega......I decide who lives and dies.

At least in my fish tank,