---
title: Glass Anemone (Exaiptasia diaphana)
scientific_name: Exaiptasia diaphana
common_name: Glass Anemone
taxon: Sea anemones
published: 2026-08-08T15:47:14.123Z
updated: 2026-08-08T18:18:43.656Z
tags: Glass Anemone, Exaiptasia diaphana, Sea anemones, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/stinging/sea-anemones/glass-anemone
---

# Glass Anemone (*Exaiptasia diaphana*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea anemones (*Actiniaria*)
- **Size:** up to 5 cm tall
- **Depth:** 0-15 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Sheltered hard surfaces, harbour walls and rubble
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Fragmentation, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Venomous

## How to recognise it

- small, translucent brown, with a slender column
- long thin tentacles, far fewer than a carpet anemone
- grows in crowds on sheltered hard surfaces
- height up to 5 cm

A small translucent anemone on a slender column, up to about 5 cm (2 in) tall, with long thin tentacles and a brownish tint from the algae living inside it. It grows in crowds on sheltered hard surfaces - harbour walls, jetty legs, rubble in still water - rather than on open reef.

It spreads by leaving pieces of itself behind: as the animal creeps, fragments of the foot tear off and each grows into a new anemone, so one individual becomes a colony without ever spawning. That, plus a tolerance for poor water, has made it a pest in aquariums worldwide and a laboratory workhorse. Because it hosts the same symbiotic algae as reef corals but is easy to keep and quick to grow, most of what is known about how coral bleaching works at the cellular level was learned from this unremarkable little animal.

## Also known as

- **Russian:** Стеклянная актиния

## Scientific synonyms

- *Actinia diaphana* Rapp, 1829
- *Adamsia diaphana*
- *Aipstasia pulchella*
- *Aiptasia agassizii* Andres, 1883
- *Aiptasia californica* Carlgren, 1952
- *Aiptasia diaphana* (Rapp, 1829)
- *Aiptasia inula* (Duchassaing & Michelotti, 1864)
- *Aiptasia leiodactyla* Pax, 1910
- *Aiptasia mimosa* (Duchassaing & Michelotti, 1864)
- *Aiptasia minuta* (Verrill, 1867)
- *Aiptasia pallida* (Agassiz in Verrill, 1864)
- *Aiptasia pulchella* Carlgren, 1943
- *Aiptasia saxicola* Andrès, 1881
- *Aiptasia tagetes* (Duchassaing & Michelotti, 1864)
- *Aiptasioides pallida*
- *Aiptasiomorpha diaphana* (Rapp, 1829)
- *Aiptasiomorpha leiodactyla* (Pax, 1910)
- *Aiptasiomorpha minuta* (Verrill, 1867)
- *Bartholomea inula* Duchassaing & Michelotti, 1864
- *Bartholomea tagetes* Duchassaing & Michelotti, 1864
- *Cribrina diaphana* (Rapp, 1829)
- *Disactis mimosa*
- *Dysactis mimosa* Duchassaing de Fombressin & Michelotti, 1864
- *Dysactis minuta* Verril, 1867
- *Dysactis pallida* Agassiz in Verrill, 1864

## Range

Caribbean Sea, South Pacific Ocean

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