---
title: Armed Burrowing Anemone (Scolanthus armatus)
scientific_name: Scolanthus armatus
common_name: Armed Burrowing Anemone
taxon: Sea anemones
published: 2026-08-08T15:47:14.133Z
updated: 2026-08-08T17:31:33.099Z
tags: Armed Burrowing Anemone, Scolanthus armatus, Sea anemones, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/stinging/sea-anemones/armed-burrowing-anemone
---

# Armed Burrowing Anemone (*Scolanthus armatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea anemones (*Actiniaria*)
- **Size:** up to 8 cm tall
- **Depth:** 1-20 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Buried in sand and fine rubble
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Venomous

## How to recognise it

- slender crown rising from sand, tentacles in two whorls
- pale translucent tentacles with darker flecks
- no visible column, body buried
- crown up to 4 cm across

A slender burrowing anemone whose tentacles rise from the sand in two whorls, pale and translucent with darker flecks. As with the other sand-dwellers the body is a buried tube and only the crown is on show, up to about 4 cm (1.6 in) across.

Burrowing anemones of this family anchor with a swollen tip at the base of the column rather than with the flat foot a reef anemone uses, which is what lets them hold position in loose sediment where nothing solid exists to grip. Feeding happens at night, on small crustaceans and worms that blunder into the crown. Records here are few, but that says as much about how these animals are found - by torchlight, on sand, by somebody moving slowly - as it does about how many there are.

## Also known as

- **Russian:** Вооружённая роющая актиния

## Scientific synonyms

- *Edwardsia armata* Carlgren, 1931

## Range

Australia, Singapore

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/stinging/sea-anemones/armed-burrowing-anemone)*
*Updated: August 8, 2026*