---
title: Mertens' Carpet Anemone (Stichodactyla mertensii)
scientific_name: Stichodactyla mertensii
common_name: Mertens' Carpet Anemone
taxon: Sea anemones
published: 2026-08-08T15:47:14.105Z
updated: 2026-08-08T18:38:48.181Z
tags: Mertens' Carpet Anemone, Stichodactyla mertensii, Sea anemones, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/stinging/sea-anemones/mertens-carpet-anemone
---

# Mertens' Carpet Anemone (*Stichodactyla mertensii*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea anemones (*Actiniaria*)
- **Size:** up to 100 cm across
- **Depth:** 1-30 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Reef slopes, draped over rock and coral
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Venomous

## How to recognise it

- huge disc draped over the contours of the rock
- short tentacles, surface flatter and smoother than the gigantic carpet
- column often marked with orange or purple warts
- disc up to 1 m across

The biggest anemone in the world by disc area: a metre (39 in) and more of short-tentacled carpet, draped over reef rock and following its contours rather than lying flat as its shallow-water relative does. The column carries orange or purple warts, visible where the edge lifts clear of the substrate.

It lives on reef slopes down to about 30 m (100 ft), and its size makes it a habitat rather than an animal: clownfish, damselfishes, cleaner shrimp and porcelain crabs all use one, sometimes simultaneously. A large individual can be a hundred years old, which is worth knowing before touching one - anemones recover slowly from damage, and the residents have nowhere else to go. The sting is milder than the gigantic carpet's and harmless through a wetsuit. Mertens' name comes from the naturalist on a nineteenth-century Russian circumnavigation.

## Also known as

- **English:** Merten's carpet anemone, Merten's sea anemone, Mertens' sea anemone
- **French:** Anémone de Mertens
- **Italian:** anemone tappeto di mertens
- **German:** Mertens Anemone
- **Portuguese:** Anêmona-carpete-de-Mertens
- **Czech:** sasanka Mertensova
- **Japanese:** アラビアハタゴイソギンチャク
- **Chinese:** 梅氏列指海葵
- **Russian:** Ковровая актиния Мертенса

## Scientific synonyms

- *Stichodactyla meretensii*

## Range

Andaman Sea, Australia, China, Japan, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Red Sea, Seychelles, South Pacific Ocean, Vietnam

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