ID on mystery invert

[DiamondReef128]

Anyone with any idea as to what this is? It seems to have a foot that it attaches to. There was a smaller one that suctioned itself to the side of the glass.

I don’t believe it’s a leather. It moves around.

 

[Stomatopods17]

I'd advise never touching it, if it moves around its probably an anemone and the first one that comes to mind with those type of tentacles is a hell's fire anemone. They're very bad to get stung by, with rumors of symptoms repeating years later.

Hopefully I'm wrong but the 'broccoli' tentacles check out.

 

[DED65]

@ISpeakForTheSeas

 

[NanoNana]

+1 for actinodendron arboreum (hell fire nem) since it stuck on the glass. How did you come by that?

 

[DiamondReef128]

I'd advise never touching it, if it moves around its probably an anemone and the first one that comes to mind with those type of tentacles is a hell's fire anemone. They're very bad to get stung by, with rumors of symptoms repeating years later.

Hopefully I'm wrong but the 'broccoli' tentacles check out.

So unfortunately but also fortunately, it is a hell’s fire anemone. The LFS checked but no one was stung so phew

 

[Mr_Knightley]

How fascinating! If I were closer to you, I would consider stopping by and buying the animal haha. It's a creature that should NOT fall into the wrong hands, its venom can be quite medically significant depending on the person being stung.

 

[Stomatopods17]

Hell's fire anems if mishandled can have some very bad results.

It got its name because it is up there as one of the worst pains as far as aquatic stings go, its comparable to being on literal fire.

What's scarier is those who were stung allegedly say its chronic, it will randomly years later just repeat the burn even when they don't own it anymore. I'm not sure in terms of medical science how that's possible but I wouldn't want to be the test subject to confirm it and "years apart" would be hard to achieve data beyond he-said, she-said.

HFA afaik are easy to keep, they just kill everything and split a lot. They will even kill clownfish, there's a few crabs/shrimp they may hitchhike on them if wild caught and make a cool species tank.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

@ISpeakForTheSeas

Probably not an Actinodendron species (the branching on the tentacles seems wrong, especially for A. arboreum); this is probably either a Thalssianthus or Heterodactyla species.

OP, could you get a pic of the mouth and a closer, clear pic of the a few individual tentacles (including some that have those little, ball-shaped things [nematospheres] on them)? That could help with saying for sure.

(Edit: Just to add, please use caution in handling these nems; I'm not sure how potent the toxins they contain are offhand, but there's a chance they have a decent sting, and I know the different parts of the tentacle - including the nematospheres - have different toxins that may impact an individual in different ways/with different levels of severity.)