The Pink Sea-Through Fantasia (Enypniastes eximia) is a deep-sea sea cucumber (an echinoderm - related to sea stars and sea urchins). One of two species in the genus, both have evolved webbed swimming structures that allow them to move off the sea floor - an unusual adaptation for sea cucumbers.
No this is not some new underwater monster/creature/abomination.
This is the close up photograph of the tentacles of Spotted Worm Sea Cucumber (Synapta maculata):
Often found on sea grasses. It has ten oral tentacles with white markings.
Pari Island, Seribu Islands
Photo by me (Lyra)
Brown Curryfish Sea Cucumber (Stichopus vastus)
Yellowish brown, creased and somewhat rectangular body with dark harlequin markings and a few short knob-like papillae. Inhabit sandy areas often mixed with sea grasses.
Sea cucumbers from this genus is the one you usually find on luxurious Chinese food. XD
Pari Island, Seribu Islands
Photo by me (Lyra)
A Spectacular Deep Ocean Sea Cucumber
photo: INDEX-SATAL/NOAA
A free-swimming sea cucumber moves through the freezing waters of a 10,515-ft (3,205-m) abyss in a “spectacular” image taken July 27, 2010, according to NOAA. The 1,250 known species of sea cucumbers—named for their distinctive shapes—live on or near deep ocean floors or dwell in the shallows.
(Watch a video of a “hairy” sea cucumber.)
When threatened, some sea cucumbers discharge sticky threads to ensnare their enemies. Others can mutilate their own bodies as a defense mechanism: The animals violently contract their muscles and jettison some of their internal organs out of their anuses. The missing body parts are quickly regenerated.
(via: National Geo)
Sea cucumber, Sea urchin, Starfish.
Paul Flanderky, from Brehms Tierleben (Brehm’s animal life) first volume, under the direction of Alfred Edmund Brehm, Leipzig & Vienna, 1918.
(Source: archive.org)
(via rhamphotheca)
Okeanos Explorer mission, Gulf of Mexico, 2012: Sea Cucumber
A holothurian, or sea cucumber, makes its way across the seafloor as it scavenges for bits of detritus. Sea cucumbers make up a huge proportion of the animal biomass in the deep sea. The head (or front end) is at right.
(Image courtesy of the NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, Gulf of Mexico Expedition)
(via: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Related to my previous post… MARINE INVERTEBRATES PANCAKE!!!
OH MY GOD
SEA URCHIN!!
This sea-dwelling sea cucumber, Enypniastes eximia, feeds on sand and mud, then swims gracefully off the bottom. Enypniastes eximia can be up to a foot in length.
Almost all sea cucumbers (which are inEchinodermata, the same phylum as starfish and sea urchins) are bottom dwellers, which lie on or burrow into the sediments and eat mud or sand to get the attached organic material. E. eximia is one of a small group of swimming sea cucumbers. It also feeds on bottom sediment, which it stuffs into its mouth with the group of tube feet surrounding the mouth. However it is also capable of swimming up above the bottom, by undulation of the cape-like structure around the top of the animal. It is a graceful, if slow, swimmer, but can be found several hundred feet above the bottom. Through the transparent body wall, one can see the intestine and other internal organs. E. eximia has luminous organs on its skin, which may deter predators.
Two sea cucumbers from the genera Stichopus (top) and Holothuria (bottom).
Not sure about the species…anybody knows?
Pulau pari. Kepulauan Seribu.
Photo by me (Lyra)
