Pink and Black Sea Cucumber Holothuria edulis

Pink and Black Sea Cucumber
Pink and Black Sea Cucumber
Pink and Black Sea Cucumber
The Pink and Black Sea Cucumber, also known, unfortunately, as the Edible, is native to the ocean floor in shallow waters of the Indo-WestPacific. They can grow to 30cm long. They have small tentacles at the mouth end. Sea cucumbers have a very important job: they eat detritus and waste, scooping it up with sand, and poop it out as clean sand, cleaning up the ocean.
Pink and Black Sea Cucumber with wrasse
Pink and Black Sea Cucumber with Blue-spotted Ribbontail Ray
Pink and Black Sea Cucumber
Usually black on the topside with a red-pink underside, it can be brown or grey on top and yellowish below. They are soft bodied, but can harden their body to a stiff, fibrous state when threatened and can release a toxic fluid. Larvae are free-swimming plankton. The Pink and Black Sea Cucumber can also split into two halves and regrow the front or back parts missing in each half. As their "edible" name indicates, they are gathered as human food, probably unsustainably, especially in China and Indonesia.