Fish round up : Sea Cucumbers

Shared by Ksso on March 27, 2011 in Uncategorized

Sea Cucumber

Sea cucumbers are a common oddity in the ocean's sandy bottom. While they look like a dead dark sausage, they're actually live animals. They're even harvested for their skin and muscles to China. Alaskan sea cucumbers are also apparently more nutritionally interesting than their chinese counterparts.

Sea cucumbers reproduce releasing sperm and ova in the sea - a subset of species fertilize their eggs internally. They also communicate one with another releasing hormons.

Wikipedia precises that sea cucumbers have no true brain. A ring of neural tissue surrounds the oral cavity, and sends nerves to the tentacles and the pharynx. The animal is, however, quite capable of functioning and moving about if the nerve ring is surgically removed, demonstrating that it does not have a central role in nervous coordination. In addition, five major nerves run from the nerve ring down length of the body beneath each of the ambulacral areas.

Next time you go on a dive an see those at the bottom, maybe you'll give them a bit more attention - at least I know I will
 

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  • us Ksso

  • # CMAS 3* VDST / N4
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    PADI Ice Diver, CMAS Nitrox 1, Photography

  • Dived in: French Polynesia, Honduras, Jamaica, Netherlands Antilles, United States, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Thailand, Greece, Cyprus, France, Indonesia

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