Friday 6 March 2015

Red-lined Sea Cucumber

Image: Jan Messersmith
Thelenota rubralineata
Seriously. They're not joking about those red lines. This thing is covered in them!

It's like an entire barbershop quartet had an awful teleporter accident. And at such short notice, too...

Image: q phia
Is Scotty's surprise birthday party completely ruined? Is ITZ'ughk-ta, princess of the lizard-shaped gas people really pregnant with Captain Kirk's child? Can the crew discover which redshirt is the Chosen One before the next away mission?

Tune in next week.


Not much is known about the Red-lined Sea Cucumber. It's big, growing to some 50 cm (20 in) long and... well, there's those red lines. It's their stand-out feature, so they're also known as Red-striped, Peppermint or Candycane Sea Cucumbers.

They've been spotted in various parts of the Indo-Pacific, like the Philippines, Indonesia and the Solomon Islands. Their range is large but the species is quite rare.

Shame. I'd love to see a whole herd of these things. The sheer quantity of stripes would put zebras to shame!

8 comments:

Esther said...

Groovy, baby!

TexWisGirl said...

it does make me crave peppermint. :)

Joseph JG said...

Cool to find a Sea Cucumber that makes everyone think about sweet, lovely things!

Crunchy said...

Don't lick the sea cucumber. Don't lick the sea cucumber. Please don't lick the sea cucumber. Please stop licking the sea cucumber. Don't look at me like that, I warned you not to lick the sea cucumber. I know. I know it doesn't taste like peppermint at all.

Porakiya said...

darn it, I was beaten to the peppermint comments.....oh well *licks sea cucumber*....bleh *keels over and dies*

Joseph JG said...

Hahah! The effects of sea cucumber greatly outweigh the effects of peppermint

Akavakaku said...

Some sea cucumbers are edible! Maybe this one would be good with a little mint and ginger...

Joseph JG said...

Hahah! There's not enough stripy food out there!