---
title: Gigantic Carpet Anemone (Stichodactyla gigantea)
scientific_name: Stichodactyla gigantea
common_name: Gigantic Carpet Anemone
taxon: Sea anemones
published: 2026-08-08T15:47:14.101Z
updated: 2026-08-08T18:01:48.630Z
tags: Gigantic Carpet Anemone, Stichodactyla gigantea, Sea anemones, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/stinging/sea-anemones/gigantic-carpet-anemone
---

# Gigantic Carpet Anemone (*Stichodactyla gigantea*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea anemones (*Actiniaria*)
- **Size:** up to 50 cm across
- **Depth:** 0-20 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Shallow sand and rubble flats, often near seagrass
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous, Venomous

## How to recognise it

- dense carpet of short tentacles covering the whole disc
- surface distinctly bumpy, tentacles of uneven length
- usually on shallow sand, not on the reef itself
- disc up to 50 cm across

A carpet anemone of the shallows: the disc is covered edge to edge in short, closely packed tentacles, giving a surface like dense pile with an uneven, bumpy texture. Diameter reaches about 50 cm (20 in), and the animal lies flat on sand or rubble rather than climbing coral.

The short tentacles are not a weaker weapon than long ones - carpet anemones have the strongest sting in the group, and this species is one of the few that can raise a welt on human skin. Contact through a wetsuit is nothing; a forearm laid across one is not. It hosts clownfish, which are immune, and the fish will defend the anemone against a diver's hand well before the anemone gets a chance to. Shallow, sunlit ground suits it because much of its energy comes from symbiotic algae, and the flat wide disc is essentially a solar collector with a stomach underneath.

## Also known as

- **English:** giant carpet anemone, gigantic sea anemone, giant anemone
- **Italian:** Anemone tappeto gigante
- **German:** Mertens Anemone, Nessellose Riesenanemone, Riesenanemone
- **Portuguese:** Anêmona-carpete-gigante
- **Japanese:** ハタゴイソギンチャク
- **Chinese:** 巨型列指海葵
- **Russian:** Гигантская ковровая актиния

## Scientific synonyms

- *Actinia amethystina* Quoy & Gaimard, 1833
- *Actinia brevitentacula* Quoy & Gaimard
- *Actinia gigantea* (Forskål, 1775)
- *Actinia Gigas* Bruguière, 1798
- *Actinia gigas* [Renier], [1804]
- *Actinia gygas* Bruguière, 1789
- *Actinia parvitentaculata* Quoy & Gaimard, 1833
- *Discosoma gigantea*
- *Discosoma giganteum*
- *Discosoma kenti* Haddon & Shackleton, 1893
- *Isacmaea gigantea* Hemprich & Ehrenberg
- *Polyparium ambulans* Korotneff, 1886
- *Priapus giganteus* Forsskål, 1775
- *Radianthus parvitentaculata* (Quoy & Gaimard, 1833)
- *Radianthus parvitentaculatus* (Quoy & Gaimard, 1833)
- *Stichodactyla kenti* (Haddon & Shackleton, 1893)
- *Stoichactis (Priapus) giganteum* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Stoichactis gigantea* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Stoichactis giganteum* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Stoichactis giganteus* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Stoichactis gigantium*
- *Stoichactis intermedia* Lager, 1911
- *Stoichactis kenti* Haddon & Shackleton, 1893

## Range

Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, South Pacific Ocean

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