By Susan Milius
The first description of clashing armies of sea anemones has revealed unsuspected military tactics.
“Sea anemone fights are amazing,” says David Ayre of the University of Wollongong in Australia. Although anemones move in slow motion, a group-living species from the shores of California, Anthopleura elegantissima, fields a sophisticated army, report Ayre and Richard Grosberg of the University of California, Davis.