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    Description:: Class: Holothuroidea (Sea Cucumbers)

    Uploaded by

    Karl Kiwis
    This document provides information about sea cucumbers (Holothuroidea) including: - Their soft-bodied, wormlike form with tiny calcareous plates and tube feet used for filter or deposit feeding - Their sluggish movement and defense mechanisms like ejecting Cuvierian tubules or viscera - Their respiration via branched trees leading from the cloaca and various commercial fishing and harvesting methods - Details on 23 species found in La Union, Philippines including images, names, habitats and commercial values - Current price lists for dried sea cucumber species ranging from 4,300 PHP to 140 PHP depending on commercial value.

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    Description:: Class: Holothuroidea (Sea Cucumbers)

    Uploaded by

    Karl Kiwis
    52 views8 pages
    This document provides information about sea cucumbers (Holothuroidea) including: - Their soft-bodied, wormlike form with tiny calcareous plates and tube feet used for filter or deposit feeding - Their sluggish movement and defense mechanisms like ejecting Cuvierian tubules or viscera - Their respiration via branched trees leading from the cloaca and various commercial fishing and harvesting methods - Details on 23 species found in La Union, Philippines including images, names, habitats and commercial values - Current price lists for dried sea cucumber species ranging from 4,300 PHP to 140 PHP depending on commercial value.

    Original Title

    SEACUCUMBER SOURCE

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    This document provides information about sea cucumbers (Holothuroidea) including: - Their soft-bodied, wormlike form with tiny calcareous plates and tube feet used for filter or deposit feeding - Their sluggish movement and defense mechanisms like ejecting Cuvierian tubules or viscera - Their respiration via branched trees leading from the cloaca and various commercial fishing and harvesting methods - Details on 23 species found in La Union, Philippines including images, names, habitats and commercial values - Current price lists for dried sea cucumber species ranging from 4,300 PHP to 140 PHP depending on commercial value.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    52 views8 pages

    Description:: Class: Holothuroidea (Sea Cucumbers)

    Uploaded by

    Karl Kiwis
    This document provides information about sea cucumbers (Holothuroidea) including: - Their soft-bodied, wormlike form with tiny calcareous plates and tube feet used for filter or deposit feeding - Their sluggish movement and defense mechanisms like ejecting Cuvierian tubules or viscera - Their respiration via branched trees leading from the cloaca and various commercial fishing and harvesting methods - Details on 23 species found in La Union, Philippines including images, names, habitats and commercial values - Current price lists for dried sea cucumber species ranging from 4,300 PHP to 140 PHP depending on commercial value.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 8

    Class: Holothuroidea (sea cucumbers)

    Description:

    Soft-bodied animals with a flexible body wall with many tiny embedded
    calcareous ossicles; no spines or arms. Body elongated in the oral-aboral axis to a
    wormlike form; with a circle of tentacles around the mouth. Usually with five or more
    series of tube feet extending longitudinally. The tube feet are found on its mouth,
    modified as tentacles that contains receptors for its sense of smell.

    1. Sea cucumbers are soft-bodied echinoderms with many tiny plates or ossicles
    embedded in their leathery body wall. The modified tube feet push the water and
    food into its mouth. They are principally filter feeders, collecting plankton with their
    tentacles, or deposit feeders, collecting food materials mixed with the bottom
    sediments.

    2. Sea cucumbers are sluggish, moving partly by means of their ventral tube feet and
    partly by waves of contraction in the muscular body wall. More sedentary species
    trap suspended food particles in the mucus of their outstretched oral tentacles or
    pick up particles from the surrounding bottom. Then they stuff their tentacles into the
    pharynx, one by one, sucking off the food material. Others crawl along, grazing the
    bottom with their tentacles.

    3. Sea cucumbers have a peculiar power of what appears to be self-mutilation but may
    be a mode of defense. When irritated or when subjected to unfavorable conditions,
    many species can cast out a part of their viscera by a strong muscular contraction
    that may either rupture the body wall or evert its contents through the anus. Lost
    parts are soon regenerated. Certain species have organs of Cuvier (cuverian
    tubules), which are attached to the posterior part of the respiratory tree and can be
    expelled in the direction of the enemy. These tubules become long and sticky after
    expulsion, and some contain toxins. The sticky filaments of this discharge entangle
    and discourage predators.
    Figure 2. Sea cucumber releasing its Cuverian tubules (whitish)

    4. Most sea cucumbers breathe by means of branched respiratory tubes, called trees,
    leading from the cloaca into the body cavity. Contractions of the cloaca force water
    into the respiratory trees, which empty the water into the body cavity; it mixes there
    with body fluids and supplies them with oxygen.

    5. Sea cucumbers are gathered by dredging during high tide or handpicked under the
    stones, corals and seaweed at ebb tide. In La Union, the most common methods for
    gathering are: overturning stones, handpicking, spear fishing, diving at shallow
    stations, use of compressors and dredging or the use of karkar.

    6. It is a delicacy among Orientals, particularly the Chinese and Japanese, which use it
    on their soups and other seafood recipes (Silvosa, 1999). In the Philippines, it is
    utilized as a value-added product like “chicharon” or by adding it on the noodle
    preparation called “pancit luglog” (Calmorin, et. al., 1990).

    7. There are 100 species of sea cucumber in the Philippines; among them 31 species
    are commercially important species. In La Union, there are 23 known holothurids.

    Scientific Image Common Local Habitat Status


    Name Name Name type (Value)
    Holothuria Sandfish Kurtido, Sandy / High
    scabra putian, seabeds value
    kiskisan
    H. edulis Red Red Sandy / High
    beauty beauty, deeper value
    hotdog, areas
    dangol

    Holothuria sp. - Rotong Seagrass No value


    / sandy
    areas

    H. fuscocineria Variegated Labuyo, Sandy / Medium


    sea lawayan boulders
    cucumber

    Scientific Image Common Local Habitat Status


    Name Name Name type (Value)
    H. atra Black Black Sandy / Low
    beauty beauty boulders value

    H. fuscocineria Elephant Sapatos Sandy / Medium


    trunkfish coral
    rubble

    Scientific Image Common Local Habitat Status


    Name Name Name type (Value)
    H. arenicola Sand sea Tagukan Sandy No value
    cucumber
    H. hilla Tiger tail Batuli Underneath No value
    big
    boulders in
    sandy to
    grassy
    areas
    H. impatiens Impatient Sunlot Sandy / No value
    sea Seabeds
    cucumber

    H. rigida Rigid sea Batunan, Sandy Low


    cucumber bat-onan value

    H. leucospilota Lollyfish Patola Sea beds No value


    /
    seagrass,
    reefs

    H. punctata - Bato, Sandy / High


    kurtido Deep value
    areas

    H. pardalis Leopard Labuyo, Seagrass Low


    taduk, beds / value
    bantulan sandy
    areas
    H. hilla Light Batuli Sandy No value
    spotted / substrate
    Tiger tail s
    sea &
    cucumber seagrass

    Scientific Image Common Local Habitat Status


    Name Name Name type (Value)
    H. pervicax Stubborn Pisot Sandy No value
    areas

    Bohadschia Chalkfish Lawayan, Sandy Medium


    marmorata tagukan areas value

    Actinopyga Brown Hudhud, sandy High


    echinites beauty/ buli-buli areas value
    Deep
    water
    Redfish

    Synapta sp. Spotted Rokosan Abundant No value


    Sea in
    Cucumber Seagrass
    beds
    Actinopyga Surf Khaki, Seagrass High
    miliaris redfish bakungan beds, value
    or sandy
    monang

    Cucumaria sp. Mini Sursurbot Seagrass No value


    cucumber & sandy
    areas

    Pearsonothuri Flowerfish Pinya- sandy & Low


    a graffei pinya rubble value
    areas
    Paracaudina Transpare - Deeper No value
    sp. nt sea areas
    cucumber & sandy

    Scientific Image Common Local Habitat Status


    Name Name Name type (Value)
    Stichopus Dragonfish Hanginan Seagrass High
    horrens & sandy value
    beds

    8. The current price list for dried sea cucumber in the Philippines are shown below:

    Highly Commercial Species

    H. fuscogilva –susuan 4,300.00


    H. scabra – kiskisan, kurtido, putian 3,400.00
    A. lecanora – buli buli 3,100.00
    Thelenota ananas – pinya pinya, taripan, talipan 2,800.00
    Stichopus horrens – hanginan 2,300.00
    S. chloronotus – quatro cantos 2,300.00

    Medium Importance

    Actinophyga mauritania – bakungan 1,800.00


    A. echinites – khaki 500.00 - 1,600.00
    Bohadschia argus – matang itik 1,050.00

    Low Importance

    Bohadschia marmorata – lawayan 860.00


    Holothuria edulis – red beauty 0.00
    Holothuria atra – black beauty 720.00
    H. fuscopunctata – sapatos 380.00
    H. fuscocineria – labuyo 140.00
    Thelenota anax – legs 540.00
    Life history:

    Sexes are usually separate, but some holothurians are hermaphroditic. Among
    echinoderms, only sea cucumbers have a single gonad, and this is considered a
    primitive character. The gonad is usually in the form of one or two clusters of tubules
    that join at the gonoduct. Fertilization is external, and the free-swimming larva is called
    an auricularia. Some species brood in young either inside the body or somewhere on
    the body surface.

    Ecology and distribution:

    More than 1100 species of sea cucumbers exist; they range in length from 2 cm
    to 2 m and dwell on seabed throughout the world. They can be found in large numbers
    in the Indo-West Pacific region. It prefers sandy-muddy substratum and is often buried
    with the posterior end always above the surface of mud. It is known to prefer slightly
    less saline areas; smaller kinds are found near the shore. They are bottom or benthic
    dwellers. As they grow, they migrate to deeper waters for breeding. It breeds twice a
    year.

    Sea cucumbers are detritus feeders or they feed on microscopic organisms, which
    they sense and sweep up from the seabed with frond-like tentacles that branch out from
    the mouth. Many sea cucumbers also ingest mud and sand and, in a manner similar to
    that of earthworms, absorb the organic matter, egest the waste from the cloaca, and
    leave castings. They are known as vacuum cleaners of the sea.

    Some of the most common sea cucumbers are widely distributed in shallow waters and
    are characterized by branching tentacles. A well-known species, the brown sea
    cucumber, is about 13 cm long and 4 cm thick. About 400 deep-sea species have been
    identified, most of them flat and gelatinous and inhabiting depths of close to 3.2 km.
    Unlike the leathery shallow-water species, these sea cucumbers are able to swim by
    undulating special “veils” attached at the front and rear of the body. Sea cucumbers of
    about a dozen species that occur on coral reefs of the southwestern Pacific are known
    commercially as bêche-de-mer, or trepang; they are dried and used to make soups.

    In the Philippines, the popular name of sea cucumber is “balat” which is also a name
    known to traders and gatherers. Dried sea cucumber can sell for almost PhP 1,000.00
    per kg for the most expensive kind and PhP 300.00 per kg for the cheapest. The
    spawning months for sea cucumbers in the Philippines are March to May and October
    to December.

    There is an interesting commensal relationship between some sea cucumbers and a


    small fish, Carapus that uses the cloaca and respiratory tree of the sea cucumber as
    shelter.
    Some Common Holothurians

    Thyone briareus – a burrowing sea cucumber found in shallow waters on soft, sandy,
    or muddy sea bottoms from Cape Cod to the Gulf of Mexico. Tube feet
    scattered over body surface.

    Cucumaria frondosa – deeper water, North Atlantic species in which the tube feet are
    arranged along five distinct ambulacral areas.

    Leptosynapta tenuis – long, wormlike sea cucumber, modified for burrowing in soft
    bottom sediments. Lacks regular tube feet.

    Fisheries and medical importance

    1. Sea cucumber is used as food, particularly the Chinese. It is known commercially


    as bêche-de-mer, or trepang; they are dried and used to make soups. It is an
    export commodity in some countries. Sea cucumbers are gathered from the
    seashore and there is no aquaculture for this species. Today widespread trading
    occurs in Hongkong and Singapore, the two major export centers of sea
    cucumbers in the world. Dried seas cucumbers are processed and re-exported to
    the USA, Canada, Europe, Taiwan, Republic of Korea, China, Australia,
    Malaysia, Thailand and others. In 1996, Philippine export of sea cucumbers was
    PhP125 million. Total export in 1958 was 5 tons, and then jumped to 1,389 tons
    in 1996.

    2. Sea cucumber produces a toxin that has been shown to inhibit tumors in mice
    and may prove useful in treating human cancer. This toxin seems to be identical
    to one taken from the crown-of-thorns starfish.

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