---
title: Mini Carpet Anemone (Stichodactyla tapetum)
scientific_name: Stichodactyla tapetum
common_name: Mini Carpet Anemone
taxon: Sea anemones
published: 2026-08-08T15:47:14.110Z
updated: 2026-08-08T18:41:05.816Z
tags: Mini Carpet Anemone, Stichodactyla tapetum, Sea anemones, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/stinging/sea-anemones/mini-carpet-anemone
---

# Mini Carpet Anemone (*Stichodactyla tapetum*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea anemones (*Actiniaria*)
- **Size:** up to 8 cm across
- **Depth:** 0-15 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Shallow rubble and rock, often in tide pools
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Fission, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Venomous

## How to recognise it

- small carpet, rarely over 8 cm across
- concentric rings of colour on the disc, often green and purple
- very short tentacles giving a beaded texture
- in shallow rubble and pools rather than on reef

A carpet anemone in miniature, rarely more than 8 cm (3 in) across, its disc patterned in concentric rings of green, purple or orange and its tentacles so short that the surface reads as beadwork rather than as a crown. It lives on shallow rubble and in tide pools, where the colours make it one of the more striking things in water shallow enough to stand in.

Size is the only thing that is small about it - the sting is proportionally strong and it catches small crustaceans and worms readily. Too small to host clownfish, it is instead occupied at times by tiny commensal shrimp. It multiplies by splitting, so a rock face can carry a cluster of identical animals side by side. In the aquarium trade this species has a following that has emptied accessible shallows in parts of its range; here it is still where it should be, in the top few metres of sheltered rubble.

## Also known as

- **English:** Mini carpet anemone
- **Portuguese:** Anêmona-carpete-joia
- **Czech:** sasanka menší
- **Japanese:** グビジンイソギンチャク
- **Chinese:** 絨氈列指海葵
- **Russian:** Малая ковровая актиния
- **KO:** 융단열말미잘

## Scientific synonyms

- *Actinia (Isacmaea) tapetum* Hemprich & Ehrenberg in Ehrenberg, 1834
- *Actinia tapetum* Ehrenb.
- *Discosoma ambonensis* Kwietniewski, 1898
- *Discosoma tapetum* (Hemprich & Ehrenberg in Ehrenberg, 1834)
- *Discosomoides tapetum* (Hemprich & Ehrenberg in Ehrenberg, 1834)
- *Homactis rupicola* Verrill, 1869
- *Isacmaea tapetum* (Hemprich & Ehrenberg in Ehrenberg, 1834)
- *Ricordea rupicola*
- *Stoichactis (Homactis) rupicola* (Verrill, 1869)
- *Stoichactis ambonensis* (Kwietniewski, 1897)
- *Stoichactis australis* Lager, 1911
- *Stoichactis laevis* Lager, 1911
- *Stoichactis rupicola* (Verrill, 1869)
- *Stoichactis tapetum* (Hemprich & Ehrenberg in Ehrenberg, 1834)

## Range

Andaman Sea, Japan, Singapore, South Pacific Ocean

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