Haddoni/Gigantea hybrid

[OrionN]

I got this anemone for the last several months. I think it is a very unique anemone in the sense that he is a hybrid of a Gigantea and Haddoni. He is clearly a carpet about 14-16 inches across. He dwell in the sand and does not shy from high light. I originally place it on the rock but he craws into the sand and dig himself in. He has not move after settle in. He ate one Purple tang already. His characteristic is just in between of the two types of carpets.
Tentacles are longer than those of Haddoni but not as long as those of Gigantea and does vibrate, but not as much as those of Gigantea. There is a rather large area of bare around the mouth. The central tentacles are about 3/4 inche long and near the edge it is only about 1/4 to 1/2 inch long. On the column, there are spots very visible but not bright in color like those od Gigantea.
He is healthy and at or about the max size. He spawned twice already one with good feeding, (and one week ater eatting the tang). He is a male and only put out sperms, no egg.

Here are some picture I took of him today

 

[drtrash]

Win Win, in my book

 

[elegance coral]

Looks like gigantea to me??????

 

[Winwood]

Hmmm, I see what you mean. It really seems to have the posture of a haddoni and those verreculae don't appear to be atypical for gigantea.

 

[OrionN]

Full pictures of the anemone

Mouth

Underside

Looks like gigantea to me??????

EC,
It is not an Gigantea. It is a sand dwelling anemone and the tentacles are not anywhere near long enough for a healthy Gigantea. You just got to take my word that it is a very healthy anemone at this time.

 

[Doni]

Mertensi?
Very pretty!

 

[Ben_Im]

That is awesome.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[TDesaulniers]

Are you actually implying it's a hybrid of some sort? It does have some characteristics of both a Haddoni and Gigantea so I see what you are getting at. Has the folded shape of a Haddoni. Anemones can be individualistic sometimes. Think of E. Quadricolor. Some have bubble tips, some have the half bubble look and some have the long tentacles. I'd say it's still a Gigantea.

 

[Ben_Im]

Edit: Whoops!

 

[OrionN]

I keep both Gigantea and Haddoni before. I am quite sure that it is neither but just right in between the two.

 

[jonnybravo22]

hmm. hi minh.

you seem pretty convinced so i wont try to sway you otherwise.

(to me it looks like a gigantea. tentacle length has a lot to do with flow and lighting. the way it's wedged at the glass looks like typical gigantea behavior to me too. )

very nice looking anemone. nice clowns too!

 

[delphinus]

I don't know anything of hybrids other than what was mentioned in TRA Vol 1 (or Vol 2 or whatever it is) by Delbeek and Sprung where they showed a picture that they said "might be a hybrid".

I had a haddoni that was sold to me as a possible hybrid simply on the basis that it looked to the supplier "just like that picture." That was 11 years ago and I only kept the anemone about 4 years on account it got too big. It was also very sticky and a very bright colour of green. It did have tentacles slightly longer than your average haddoni but as stated already above, I'm not so convinced that this just can't be individual difference from one anemone to another. I had a gigantea with 3" long tentacles near the mouth but it was clearly gigantea and not mertensii (to which the variable length tentacles seem to be a trait, usually).

Anyhow whether it is or isn't a hybrid I think it's probably too difficult for us novices to really have an informed opinion (need someone like Daphne Fautin to chime in on that possibility) or maybe even BonsaiNut (is he even still active on RC? I wouldn't know as I'm not here as regularly as I used to be).

Whatever it is, it's nice. Like you one day I hope to try a male and a female gigantea. My current gigantea have never spawned but the haddoni I had (or the haddoni/gigantea, but I think it was haddoni) did spawn a few times per year for me.

 

[OrionN]

I got this anemone in sometime in March or April. When I got it I was sure that it was a Haddoni. There was no question in my mind. It was a return to LFS from someone who had it for an unknow periord of time. I certaily keep many Haddoni. This buy is clearly different from any Haddoni I had in the past or at this time.
If I have to decide between the two and if my life is depends on it, I would said that it is a Haddoni but it had way too many Gigantea characteristics.
I guess I will never know for sure.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I refrained from commenting in this thread when I first saw it because I don't know what to make of this anemone.
It's difficult to look at a pic on the internet and make a judgement call.
I've / we've seen many species of fish (and possibly corals) cross breed.

One thing is for sure:
the more we know... the more we realize how much we don't know.

 

[phender]

From the way it is holding itself and the location of the spots on the underside, I think you have a mertensii. Usually their spots are orange getting brighter and more stripe-like as they approach the foot, but I have seen some that were dull like that as well.
Mertensii are capable of eating a tang. I had one that ate a large rabbitfish.

Nice score on the green color. Most of them are brown or mustard colored.

 

[OrionN]

Thanks Tony, Gary and Phil. Your opinions are of great value to me.
I never keep a Mertensii so I am not familiar with this species first hand. This anemone have light spots and only near the top. There are no spot on the lower half of the column. I think at about 16-18 inches this anemone is at it's max size. If I feed it, it just spawn and would not grow any larger. I only feed it sparingly now because I don't want to keep on changing water every time it spawn. The column also just pale tan, not colorful like those of most Gigantea.
After 6+ month in a 95 g tank, it ate a Purple tang, a Marine Beta and all 5 of my Royal Gramma. One large hermit crab and a few Trocus snails. All these time, I have night light and a reasonably large pair A. percula in it. Now I only have a small A. polymnus, a Leopard wrasse and a Red Sea Sailfin at this time. I have refrain from adding any more fish into this tank. I just removed the Onyx Percula to send to a friend on Monday.
I have corals and clams in this tank and a small (7 inches) S. haddoni on the other side of the rock hosting the saddle back clown.
I will read and look at more Mertensii and see if this could be the ID. I saw Mertensii at a LFS in Houston before, but was doing poorly. I have not seen one healthy first hand before.

 

[Winwood]

Minh, is the foot buried in the sand? It appears to be. Can you get a better shot of the column? I suspect it is not a mertensi, based on the appearance of the way the oral disc is configured against the substrate. The anemone also seems to lack the extended tentacles located near the mouth of the animal, which is also indicative of S. mertensi.

 

[phender]

I went back and looked at some of my old pictures. While the spots look more like merten's than gigantea to me, the tentacles look more like gigantea.

The merten's column and foot and very weak compared to either gigantea or haddoni and it only very rarely extends itself.

I have included some old pics, so you can make some comparisons as to tentacles, column, foot, etc.

Just because it is in the sand, doesn't mean it is not a gigantea. They have been known to bury their bases as well. It does make it very unlikely that it would be a merten's though.

.......... The anemone also seems to lack the extended tentacles located near the mouth of the animal, which is also indicative of S. mertensi.

Of the 6 or 7 merten's that I have seen in person, none of them have show the extended tentacles around the mouth. Out of the 4 or 5 pictures I have seen of merten's in other people's tanks, only one has shown the extended tentacles.
That said, I agree after looking at some old pics, that it is not likely a merten's.

 

[Winwood]

I agree with you that the spots do look similar to mertensi to me as well and made me take a second look at mine for comparison. However, the way the anemone is situated appears to be haddoni like (saddled for lack of a better term) as opposed to more or less flat like most mertensi.

Also, like you mentioned Phil, the column seems to be more substantial than that of S. Mertensi. This is the main reason I wanted to see if Minh could get a better photo of it.

 

[Winwood]

Oh and for what it's worth I love seeing photos of your old merten's Phil. That thing was awesome!