All fishermen must possess a special license to fish sea cucumbers and some coastal areas have closed fishing of sea cucumbers and restricted it to certain times of the year in order to protect the species. (Stutz 1995.)
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: no special status
No major negative effects known, but if sewage is dumped into waters it may settle all of the way on the ocean floor. Such contaminates may be ingested by the sea cucumber and eventually affect organisms higher on the food chain. (Detjen 1993.)
Sea cucumbers can be used in home saltwater aquariums to keep them clean of plankton and other unwanted small organisms.
Sea cucumbers are also important to the fishing industry, especially pepineros (sea cucumber fishermen) because they are a prized ingredient in Asian cuisine.
Sea cucumbers are first gutted, their body wall dried, and then made into a soup (Detjen 1993).
In addition, scientists say that studying the methods that sea cucumbers use to deal with infections may yield information about peritonitis in humans. (Stutz 1995.)
They will eat almost anything in range but usually eat plankton and other small microscopic organisms (Stachowitsch 1992). They function like earthworms, ingesting sand and mud along with the plankton and pass it through their bodies (Carson 1955). Some species of sea cucumbers have annual periods of dormancy where they eat nothing at all and only eat when the water has reached a certain temperature. During these rest periods that usually start in October or November, they display atrophy of their internal organs. New internal organ are then regenerated when they are ready to eat again, about 6 weeks later (Grzimek 1972).
This species can be found in the waters of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic from Norway to Morocco. (Grzimek 1972)
Biogeographic Regions: atlantic ocean (Native ); mediterranean sea (Native )
This species is strictly marine and can be found in the sand and mud from sea level to 110 meters in the water. (Grzimek 1972.)
Aquatic Biomes: coastal
This species has an elongated body that is usually U-shaped and resembles the shape and size of the vegetable, cucumber, where it gets its name. It has a tube-shaped ventral surface with 5 rows of tube feet that extend the entire length of the body. It does not have arms. (Banister and Campbell 1985.) The dorsal surface is covered with stiff, conical projections that are brownish or gray in color. The body wall is naked with only minutely defined ossicles and is very elastic and leathery in texture. Their mouth is located at the anterior and their anus is located at the posterior. The mouth is surrounded by a ring of simple branched tentacles that are usually retractable when they catch their prey. (Grzimek 1972.) They have a water vascular system that includes a water ring around a proximal pharnyx with 5 radial canals that run the length of the body wall. They are pentameral, or have 5-rayed symmetry with 5 rows of tube feet.(Fisheries and Oceans Canada). They range in size from a few centimeters to 8 inches. (Carson 1955)
Other Physical Features: ectothermic
They mainly reproduce by sexual reproduction and have only one gonad which is a cluster or tuft of closed tubules. Spawning lasts about 30 minutes and is done directly in the surrounding water usually in late afternoon. The male gamete is released first into the water then the females lay eggs. Gamete-release is triggered by the presence of pheromones. Fertilization thus takes place in the water, then the fertilized egg either sinks to the bottom or rises to the water surface. (Grzimek 1972.)
Lives buried in muddy sand or mud with only the tentacles visible. Can be common in shallow water with Virgularia mirabilis.
Paraleptopentacta elongata is a species of sea cucumber in the family Cucumariidae. It is found in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and parts of the Mediterranean Sea. It is an infaunal species, occupying a burrow in the seabed, from which its anterior and posterior ends project.
Paraleptopentacta elongata is a slender, greyish-brown sea cucumber with a U-shaped, or sometimes S-shaped body, reaching a maximum length of about 10 cm (4 in). It dwells in a burrow in the sediment, with the two extremities projecting.[2] The dorsal surface is covered with darker brown or grey, conical projections. In small specimens, the ventral surface bears five longitudinal rows of tube feet, and in larger specimens, it bears five double rows. The cuticle is leathery, stiffened by numerous smooth ossicles, small irregular perforated plates which form part of the body wall. The mouth, at the anterior end, is surrounded by a ring of tentacles, eight being large and much-branched, with the two on the ventral side being short and forked.[2] The anus is at the posterior end of the body.[3]
This sea cucumber is native to the northeastern Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Its range extends from Norway to Morocco, and it occurs on sandy and muddy seabeds at depths down to about 110 m (360 ft).[3]
Paraleptopentacta elongata is considered as a suspension feeder by some sources, consuming diatoms, single-cell algae and organic particles, as well as zooplankton, such as copepods, ostracods, protozoans, nematodes, jellyfish and larvae. It uses its eight feeding tentacles to gather particles, each shrinking and bending, in an apparently random order, to transfer the food to the mouth. The two ventral tentacles are used in coordination with the other tentacles, being folded around the feeding tentacles so that the forks scrape off the food fragments when the larger tentacles are withdrawn from the mouth; in some other sea cucumbers with similar feeding habits, such as Pawsonia saxicola, the forked tentacles seem to act entirely independently and do not coordinate their actions with the larger tentacles.[4]
However, another work tends to prove that Paraleptopentacta elongata is a deposit feeder, living burrowed in sediment with only a short portion of its aboral end protruding. The belief of its suspension feeding life style could come from misinterpretation of observations where specimens were seen emerging from the sand and moving their tentacles in a manner suggesting feeding and from the occasional presence of mucus on the tentacles, understood as particles catching tool. In this work, the author reports a two weeks period during which none of the observed specimens emerged from the substratum but they produced faecal pellets near the burrow openings, indicating the feeding occurs beneath the sediment. [5]
This sea cucumber can hibernate in the winter. In preparation for this, and perhaps in preparation for reproduction, it accumulates and stores lipid droplets in the enterocytes in the lining of the gut.[6]
Paraleptopentacta elongata is a species of sea cucumber in the family Cucumariidae. It is found in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and parts of the Mediterranean Sea. It is an infaunal species, occupying a burrow in the seabed, from which its anterior and posterior ends project.
