Showing posts tagged sea cucumber
California Sea Cucumber (Parastichopus californicus) … is the largest sea cucumber species along the Pacific Northwest coast. The species feeds on organic detritus and small organisms, which it ingests with bottom sediments. The primary predators of P. californicus (also known as are the sea stars Pycnopodia helianthoides and Solaster endeca, but the species is also occasionally eaten by sea otters and man. Unlike many tropical sea cucumbers, P. californicus does not store substances toxic to predators. The hindgut bears a pair of highly branched diverticula, which project into the coelomic cavity of the body and serve as “water lungs”. Oxygenated water is pumped into these respiratory trees in severa successive inhalations and then expelled in one powerful exhalation. Breeding occurs in the summer. Development is indirect. The sperm have spherical heads and an unusually low DNA content. The fertilized eggs develop into auricularia larvae which metamorphose into doliolaria larva which settle. The pelagic phase lasts from 7 to 13 weeks in the laboratory. Populations of P. californicus in the Puget Sound eviscerate (photo) during October and November and then regenerate new sets of organs. Evisceration may also occur if the animals are kept in warm or stale water. The scale worm Arctonoe pulchra may occur as a commensal on P. californicus. More detail from Invertebrates of the Salish Sea: http://eol.org/pages/597386 (photo Ken-ichi Ueda via iNaturalist) (via: EOL) View high resolution

California Sea Cucumber (Parastichopus californicus)

… is the largest sea cucumber species along the Pacific Northwest coast. The species feeds on organic detritus and small organisms, which it ingests with bottom sediments. The primary predators of P. californicus (also known as are the sea stars Pycnopodia helianthoides and Solaster endeca, but the species is also occasionally eaten by sea otters and man.

Unlike many tropical sea cucumbers, P. californicus does not store substances toxic to predators. The hindgut bears a pair of highly branched diverticula, which project into the coelomic cavity of the body and serve as “water lungs”. Oxygenated water is pumped into these respiratory trees in severa successive inhalations and then expelled in one powerful exhalation.

Breeding occurs in the summer. Development is indirect. The sperm have spherical heads and an unusually low DNA content. The fertilized eggs develop into auricularia larvae which metamorphose into doliolaria larva which settle. The pelagic phase lasts from 7 to 13 weeks in the laboratory.

Populations of P. californicus in the Puget Sound eviscerate (photo) during October and November and then regenerate new sets of organs. Evisceration may also occur if the animals are kept in warm or stale water. The scale worm Arctonoe pulchra may occur as a commensal on P. californicus.

More detail from Invertebrates of the Salish Sea: http://eol.org/pages/597386

(photo Ken-ichi Ueda via iNaturalist)

(via: EOL)

A 5 cm-long scaleworm on the underside of a 2 ft-long holothurian (sea cucumber) at 1,526 m. Image captured by the Little Hercules remotely operated vehicle on a site referred to as ‘Baruna Jaya IV - Site 1’ on August 1, 2010. (Image source: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/explorations/10index/logs/slideshow/ex_july_highlights/slideshow.html) View high resolution

A 5 cm-long scaleworm on the underside of a 2 ft-long holothurian (sea cucumber) at 1,526 m. Image captured by the Little Hercules remotely operated vehicle on a site referred to as ‘Baruna Jaya IV - Site 1’ on August 1, 2010.

(Image source: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/explorations/10index/logs/slideshow/ex_july_highlights/slideshow.html)

Quest For Illegal Sea Harvest Divides Community in Mexico by Karla Zabludovsky DZILAM DE BRAVO, Mexico — Whispers of high-speed boat chases, harpoon battles on the open sea and divers who dived deep and never re-emerged come and go around here like an afternoon gale. What has wrapped this village in such hostility? Sea cucumbers. The spiky, sluglike marine animals are bottom feeders that are not even consumed in Mexico, but they are a highly prized delicacy half a world away, in China, setting off a maritime gold rush up and down the Yucatán Peninsula… (read more: NY TImes)             (photo: Adriana Zehbrauskas) View high resolution

Quest For Illegal Sea Harvest Divides Community in Mexico

by Karla Zabludovsky

DZILAM DE BRAVO, Mexico — Whispers of high-speed boat chases, harpoon battles on the open sea and divers who dived deep and never re-emerged come and go around here like an afternoon gale.

What has wrapped this village in such hostility?

Sea cucumbers.

The spiky, sluglike marine animals are bottom feeders that are not even consumed in Mexico, but they are a highly prized delicacy half a world away, in China, setting off a maritime gold rush up and down the Yucatán Peninsula…

(read more: NY TImes)             (photo: Adriana Zehbrauskas)

Giant Sea Cucumber Eats With Its Anus

by Carrie Arnold

Most kindergarteners can tell you that an animal eats with its mouth, not its butt.

One species of sea cucumber, however, didn’t appear to get the memo: Scientists have discovered that the giant California sea cucumber (Parastichopus californicus) actually uses its anus as a second mouth.

Scientists already knew that the marine invertebrate, which lives in the shallow ocean waters off the Pacific coast of North America, breathes with its butt. Because they don’t have lungs, sea cucumbers rely on respiratory trees, a set of long tubes running down either side of the body with a lot of different branches. P. californicus is shaped like a hollow tube, with a mouth at one end and its anus at the other.

The respiratory trees receive oxygen when water is pumped through their anus using the muscles of their cloaca, an opening at the end of the intestinal tract.The 20 in. long  (50-cm-long) animal is no slouch: It can pump 3.5 to 4 cups of water per hour through its anus, transferring the oxygen from the water into its respiratory trees, which then oxygenates its cells…

(read more: National Geographic) 

(photos: T - Gary Hughes, Your Shot; BL - Lois Booth, My Shot; BR - Gerald and Buff Corsi, Visuals Unlimited/Getty Images)

MBARI: A Deep Sea Valentine

The velvety red of a drifting jelly, the brick red of a vampire squid…many deep-sea creatures exhibit the colors of Valentine’s Day. When pursuing the prey object of their desire, deep-sea creatures may use red as camouflage. Wavelengths of light in the red end of the visible spectrum are preferentially absorbed by seawater, and therefore red colors appear black in the deep sea. Red animals disappear into the darkness, enabling them to ambush unsuspecting prey or avoid a hungry predator.

The bright red lights you can see in some of the clips (e.g., the sea star at 01:22) are lasers from MBARI’s remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and used to estimate sizes. The lasers are 29 cm apart.


1. Midwater jelly - Pandea rubra
2. Cock-eyed squid - Histioteuthis heteropsis
3. Siphonophore - Resomia dunni
4. Deep-sea jelly — Voragonema
5. Mysid shrimp
6. Comb jelly - Beroe abyssicola
7. Cydippid comb jelly - Aulacoctena
8. Bubblegum gorgonian (Paragorgia arborea) on Davidson Seamount
9. Pandalopsis ampla
10. North Pacific Giant Octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini) and Redbanded rockfish (Sebastes semicinctus)
11. Sea star — Family Pterasteridae
12. Lithodid crab - Paralomis sp.
13. New species of soft coral - Gersemia juliepackardae
14. Flapjack octopus - Opisthoteuthis sp.
15. Brisingid sea star and sea cucumber (Paelopatides confundens)
16. Bone-devouring worms - Osedax rubiplumis
17. Vampire squid - Vampyroteuthis infernalis

(via: MBARI)

Check out this translucent holothurian (sea cucumber)… You can actually see its gut through its transparent body wall. Sea cukes feed by using their tentacles to trap particles in the water column. This specimen was found in the deep sea, on the Mid Cayman Ridge in the Caribbean Sea. (Image source: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/explorations/ex1104/logs/dailyupdates/media/aug15_update_1.html) (via: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research) View high resolution

Check out this translucent holothurian (sea cucumber)…

You can actually see its gut through its transparent body wall. Sea cukes feed by using their tentacles to trap particles in the water column. This specimen was found in the deep sea, on the Mid Cayman Ridge in the Caribbean Sea.

(Image source: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/explorations/ex1104/logs/dailyupdates/media/aug15_update_1.html)

(via: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research)

Sea Pigs (Scotoplanes sp.), a species of deep sea benthic sea cucumber, crawling along the seafloor (2324m) Endeavour Ridge, RCMNorth, with a brittlestar, in the mud. (photo: Neptune Canada) View high resolution

Sea Pigs (Scotoplanes sp.), a species of deep sea benthic sea cucumber, crawling along the seafloor (2324m) Endeavour Ridge, RCMNorth, with a brittlestar, in the mud.

(photo: Neptune Canada)

Holothurian (sea cucumber) feeding on sediments. Image captured by the Little Hercules ROV at 600 meters depth on the Paramount seamounts on July 14, 2011, during the Galapágos Rift Expedition. Image courtesy of NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program. View high resolution

Holothurian (sea cucumber) feeding on sediments. Image captured by the Little Hercules ROV at 600 meters depth on the Paramount seamounts on July 14, 2011, during the Galapágos Rift Expedition.

Image courtesy of NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program.

Whale skeleton being colonized and eaten by by critters on the seafloor of Monterey canyon. In this scene one can see dozens of Sea Pigs (Scotoplanes sp.), a kind of deep sea sea cucumber with little tentacles. (photo: MBARI)             (via: SF Chronicle) View high resolution

Whale skeleton being colonized and eaten by by critters on the seafloor of Monterey canyon. In this scene one can see dozens of Sea Pigs (Scotoplanes sp.), a kind of deep sea sea cucumber with little tentacles.

(photo: MBARI)             (via: SF Chronicle)

Lothodid-type spiked crab with spiked holothurian and carnivorous anemone. Image captured August 5, 2010 by the Little Hercules ROV at 751 meters depth on a new seamount mapped by Baruna Jaya IV during the INDEX SATAL 2010 Expedition. Image courtesy of NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, INDEX-SATAL 2010. View high resolution

Lothodid-type spiked crab with spiked holothurian and carnivorous anemone. Image captured August 5, 2010 by the Little Hercules ROV at 751 meters depth on a new seamount mapped by Baruna Jaya IV during the INDEX SATAL 2010 Expedition.

Image courtesy of NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, INDEX-SATAL 2010.

Sea Cucumber in Curaçao Sea cucumbers might have a cucumber shape, but are definitely animal, not vegetable… or fruit. They belong to the Phylum Echinodermata, which also includes sea urchins, sand dollars, sea stars and brittle stars. This specimen, Holothuria sp., was collected by submersible at about 252 meters (830 feet) depth off Curaçao and placed in an aquarium. A few hours later, a small pearlfish swam out of its anus! This pearlfish is not the one that was living inside this sea cucumber, but it’s very similar. (via: Smithsonian Ocean Portal) View high resolution

Sea Cucumber in Curaçao

Sea cucumbers might have a cucumber shape, but are definitely animal, not vegetable… or fruit. They belong to the Phylum Echinodermata, which also includes sea urchins, sand dollars, sea stars and brittle stars. This specimen, Holothuria sp., was collected by submersible at about 252 meters (830 feet) depth off Curaçao and placed in an aquarium. A few hours later, a small pearlfish swam out of its anus! This pearlfish is not the one that was living inside this sea cucumber, but it’s very similar.

(via: Smithsonian Ocean Portal)

A deep purple deep see sea cucumber with a high “spike” protruding from its dorsal section. Image courtesy of NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, INDEX-SATAL 2010. (via: NOAA) View high resolution

A deep purple deep see sea cucumber with a high “spike” protruding from its dorsal section.

Image courtesy of NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, INDEX-SATAL 2010.

(via: NOAA)

An un-described species of Sea Cucumber photographed by the Little Hercules ROV during the INDEX 2010 deep sea Exploration of the Sangihe Talaud Region off Indonesia in July, 2010. (photo: NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program) View high resolution

An un-described species of Sea Cucumber photographed by the Little Hercules ROV during the INDEX 2010 deep sea Exploration of the Sangihe Talaud Region off Indonesia in July, 2010.

(photo: NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program)

Diversity of Sea Cucumbers - Deep Atlantic by James Owen A rare sea cucumber demonstrates uncharacteristic swimming skill in the blackness of the deep Atlantic. The creature is one of ten suspected new species found during a recent survey of the region, where the Gulf Stream—a powerful current that carries warm water northeast across the Atlantic—cuts across the Mid-Atlantic Ridge via deep canyons. The survey revealed extremely diverse and abundant animal life in the area, according to the expedition team. They found very different groups of species living north and south of the Gulf Stream, and on opposite sides of the ridge. “There were startling differences over short distances,” team member Monty Priede said. (via: National Geo)          (photo: David Shale) View high resolution

Diversity of Sea Cucumbers - Deep Atlantic

by James Owen

A rare sea cucumber demonstrates uncharacteristic swimming skill in the blackness of the deep Atlantic. The creature is one of ten suspected new species found during a recent survey of the region, where the Gulf Stream—a powerful current that carries warm water northeast across the Atlantic—cuts across the Mid-Atlantic Ridge via deep canyons.

The survey revealed extremely diverse and abundant animal life in the area, according to the expedition team. They found very different groups of species living north and south of the Gulf Stream, and on opposite sides of the ridge. “There were startling differences over short distances,” team member Monty Priede said.

(via: National Geo)          (photo: David Shale)

Mountaineering Sea Cucumber - Deep Atlantic by James Owen Another new variety of swimming sea cucumber was spotted journeying along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge during the recent (2010) MAR-ECO expedition. Deep-sea sea cucumbers are normally found on the ocean floor. But the study team saw several species high on steep slopes of the vast underwater mountain range running the length of the Atlantic Ocean. “We’ve always thought of them as slow-crawling animals, but they are actually capable of swimming,” marine biologist Monty Priede, said. “This is quite important on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, because otherwise there’s a risk of starving if they get stuck on a ledge somewhere.” (via: National Geo)          (photo: David Shale) View high resolution

Mountaineering Sea Cucumber - Deep Atlantic

by James Owen

Another new variety of swimming sea cucumber was spotted journeying along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge during the recent (2010) MAR-ECO expedition. Deep-sea sea cucumbers are normally found on the ocean floor. But the study team saw several species high on steep slopes of the vast underwater mountain range running the length of the Atlantic Ocean.

“We’ve always thought of them as slow-crawling animals, but they are actually capable of swimming,” marine biologist Monty Priede, said. “This is quite important on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, because otherwise there’s a risk of starving if they get stuck on a ledge somewhere.”

(via: National Geo)          (photo: David Shale)