Novel observations of asexual reproduction in the carpet sea anemone, (Stichodactylidae, Actiniaria).

Merten's carpet sea anemone, Brandt, 1835, is the largest known sea anemone species in the world, regularly exceeding one meter in oral disc diameter. A tropical species from the Indo-Pacific, drapes prominently over coral reef substrates and is a common host to numerous species of clownfishes and other symbionts throughout its range, which extends from the Red Sea through the Central Pacific Ocean. Long thought to reproduce via sexual reproduction only, recent genetic evidence suggests it may rarely reproduce asexually as well, although this process had never been confirmed through direct observation and the mechanism was yet to be described.