Snake Sea Cucumber

• It has no tube feet and no respiratory organs at all: it breathes through its skin and moves by crawling through contractions of the body wall.
• Its skin grips the hand like adhesive tape thanks to microscopic carbonate anchors embedded in the body wall.
• It can break apart if handled, and some fragments are able to regenerate a complete animal.
• It is the longest sea cucumber in the world: it reaches three metres, although it is very slender, like a rubber snake.
• It has neither tube feet nor respiratory trees: it breathes through its skin and moves by contracting its body, undulating along.
• It sticks to the touch. Its skin is full of calcareous spicules shaped like tiny anchors that catch on skin like Velcro, a disconcerting sensation for the diver who handles it.
• Held too firmly it can break into pieces, and the fragments with the front end regenerate the rest.
• It swallows sand continuously and passes it out stripped of organic matter, helping to recycle the reef's sediment.

Habitat & environment

Seagrass meadows and sandy reef bottoms of the Indo-Pacific

Sources consulted: Chamisso y Eysenhardt (1821); Purcell et al., Commercially Important Sea Cucumbers of the World; Australian Museum