Sea cucumbers

• Context (IE): Recent studies spotlight remarkable regenerative abilities in sea cucumbers.

About Sea Cucumbers

• Physical Characteristics: Cylindrical, soft-bodied creatures with leathery skin. Appears similar to cucumber, with small tentacle-like tube feet for locomotion and feeding.
• Sea cucumbers are part of a larger animal group called echinoderms, like starfish and sea urchins.

• Size: Less than an inch (2.5 centimetres) to over six feet (1.8 meters).
• Habitat: Inhabit deep ocean floors, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions.
  • Range: Benthic (live on the ocean floor). Larvae are planktonic (float in the ocean currents). Found in virtually all marine environments.
• Diet: Scavengers. Feeds on small food items in the benthic zone (seafloor) and plankton floating in the water column. They also eat algae, aquatic invertebrates, and waste particles.
• Life span: 5 to 10 years.
• Behaviour:
  • Both Sexual and asexual reproduction. Eggs undergo external fertilisation. Females release eggs into the water that are fertilised by coming into contact with sperm that males have released.
  • Often burrows into the seafloor, scavenging for organic matter.
  • Sea cucumbers can confuse or harm predators by propelling their own toxic internal organs from their bodies in the direction of an attacker.
  • Uses organ ejection as a defensive distraction tactic against predators like turtles or crabs.

• Regeneration: Regrows internal organs within a week as a rapid response to injury.
• Threat: Overfishing.
• When disturbed, sea cucumbers can expose skeletal hooklike structures that make them harder for predators to eat.
• Sea cucumber presence prevent pathogens from sickening co-occurring corals.
• Sea cucumbers, scavengers of the seafloor that resemble cylindrical vegetables, have been consumed as a delicacy in Asia for centuries.
• Conservation Status: IUCN: LC

Source: IUCN