Creature Feature: Bêche de Mer? Sounds Delicious!
Posted By Abigail Smigel on 19 May 2004
I truly believe that Sea Cucumbers are the most passively rude creatures I've ever come across. Sure, they seem to just lay there on the sea floor, but swim a little closer and all respect for fellow living beings goes right out the window. I'm serious; these critters are just plain old disrespectful. In fact, if they don't like the looks of you, it's not uncommon to be greeted by a spew of their back door plumbing. Not to mention words that are typically used to describe these guys. Honestly, how else are you going to describe a critter that is long, cylindrical and when handled by unsuspecting divers, hardens up and eviscerates. I'll tell you this; any of the words that pop into my head are not words I'd dare utter to my mother.
In defense of Sea Cucumbers, Mother Nature hasn't given them much to work with. There's really nothing cute about these guys, eye-less, warty and slimy, even all the action seems to take place in the rear as well. Not only do they breathe and excrete through their poop shoots, but guests enter through the back door as well.
There are more than 1000 species of Sea Cucumbers, most of which are deep water varieties. In fact, Sea Cucumbers make up 90 percent of life forms that inhabit waters at 8,000 meters. These cool cucumber-like critters vary in length from 2 centimeters to 2 meters in length. Sea Cucumbers belong to the phylum Echinodermata along with Sea Stars, Sea Urchins, Brittle Stars, Sand Dollars, and Basket Stars. Loosely translated, Echinodermata means "spiny skin." All critters belonging to the Echinoderm phyla are characterized by pentaradial symmetry, which means their bodies are separated into five duplicate parts. Each of the five body sections is identical to the other four. One way of looking at a Sea Cucumber is to imagine a five armed Sea Star folded up into a long tube. Sea Cucumbers also have a distinct dorsal and ventral side, top and bottom. These guys don't have eyes, hearts or brains, so maybe they can take all the bad rap we dish out about them.
At first glance Sea Cucumbers don't appear to lead very active lives but they are actually the Hoovers of the sea floor. Most species ingest sediment from the bottom and filter out the digestible parts such as animal and plant remains, then excrete the processed sand. It is a slow process, but surprisingly some of the larger species filter up to 100 pounds of seafloor a year! As a result of their affinity for cleaning sand, Sea Cucumbers can have a significant impact on the health of an underwater ecosystem. Other species of Sea Cucumbers that don't bottom feed use the tentacles surrounding their mouths to filter feed organisms from passing currents.
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