TWO ANEMONES ON A DEAD GLASS SPONGE STALK, NEAR THE ROSEBUD WHALE FALL

Detail, ROSEBUD WHALE FALL, Oil on canvas on panel, 27 x 40 ¼", 2021

Sea Anemone Liponema brevicornis (?) (Phylum Cnidaria) is a predatory invertebrate animal. It is related to coral, jellyfish and Hydra.

It is thought that some Glass Sponges living on the seabed were killed at the time Rosebud was sunk off the coast of Point Loma, San Diego. The stalk or spicule (made of glass and thus not alive) remained. These anemones are using the glass stalk to get off the ocean floor to a higher position where they can get more food in the current. (See illustration below of Glass Sponge on its stalk/spicule—a double helix of glass strands.)