Sea Cucumber Information
The name "sea cucumber" encompasses a wide variety of sea-floor dwelling animal species that live in most oceans. They belong to the class Holothuroidea (which contains about 1,150 species) and are related to the sea urchin.
The sea cucumber's main commercial usage is as a food, and among its various product names are sea slug, trepang, balate and beche de mer. Other than in cuisine, the sea cucumber is utilized in branches of Eastern medicine and is referenced in literary works.
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Features
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Sea cucumbers look like a bratwurst or cucumber with a leathery, thick skin and tentacles near the mouth. Most have reduced endoskeletons to the point of microscopic bone plates that can look like wheels, anchors or bars.
Most species are scavengers, eating plankton and organic debris from the ocean floor. Their feeding grounds range from deep sea to shallow regions, such as tide pools and coral reefs.
To breathe, sea cucumbers suck up water through their anuses, where respiratory trees just inside the anus take the oxygen before the water is expelled back through the anus. They may also breathe through their body walls and tube feet.
Sea cucumbers have yellow blood, which comes from the pigment vinabin. Vinabin consists of 10 percent vanadium, from which it gets its color.
Warning
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Sea cucumbers have several forms of defense, including ejection of the digestion system, which distracts predators long enough for the sea cucumber to escape. The ejected system regrows over a period of months.
Another defense method of certain species is the ejection of sticky filaments out the anal opening. These filaments entangle the predator.
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Food
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Sea cucumbers are delicacies in Asian cuisine and provide protein, riboflavin and niacin. The sea cucumber is available freshly harvested or dried and is used for a variety of dishes. Frequently, it is added to stew or soup and can have a slick quality. Dried sea cucumber must first be boiled and left to rehydrate in a water bath for a number of days before being used in a recipe.
Medicine
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Sea cucumbers are a part of traditional Chinese medicine according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which states that it is an ideal tonic food. Modern science discovered additional evidence for the usefulness of the sea cucumber for health purposes. The December 2007 issue of "PLOS Pathogens" reported that a lectin found in the sea cucumber species Cucumaria echinata slowed the growth of the malaria parasite.
Considerations
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Harvesting sea cucumbers is called trepanging. This involves going to where the sea cucumbers are located in a small craft and harvesting them by hand. Traditional harvesting methods include diving, hand picking and spearing. Some places, such as Western Australia and China, have sea cucumber fisheries.
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