Artsdatabanken, Norwegen
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Psolus squamatus is a sessile sea cucumber, which means it cannot actively escape its predators.
It owes its common name “armored sea cucumber” to the fact that when in danger, the sea cucumber retracts and its visible foot resembles a stone, making it indistinguishable from the rocky sea floor and thus invisible to predators such as certain fish and crustaceans.
This short video from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) shows the behavior of sea cucumbers very well.
To feed, Psolus squamatus unfurls long, finely branched tentacles into the water column and waits patiently for tiny plankton and other organic material such as sea snow to swim by, which it collects with a sticky mucus and transports into its mouth with its tentacles.
So far, so good.
Psolus squamatus is not currently monitored by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, but like many other marine species, it cannot distinguish between passing microplastics and plankton or other useful organic matter and ingests them.
The impact of man-made microplastics on the health of sessile sea cucumbers such as Psolus squamatus has not yet been researched and would certainly be an interesting topic for a doctoral thesis.
Synonyms:
Holothuria squamata O.F. Müller, 1776 · unaccepted (synonym)
Holothuria squamatus O.F. Müller, 1776 · unaccepted (misspelling (Paulay, Gustav))
Psolus asper Augustin, 1908 · unaccepted
Psolus squamatus squamatus · unaccepted (subspecies not used (Paulay, G.))
Psolus valvatus Östergren, 1904 · unaccepted (synonym)
It owes its common name “armored sea cucumber” to the fact that when in danger, the sea cucumber retracts and its visible foot resembles a stone, making it indistinguishable from the rocky sea floor and thus invisible to predators such as certain fish and crustaceans.
This short video from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) shows the behavior of sea cucumbers very well.
To feed, Psolus squamatus unfurls long, finely branched tentacles into the water column and waits patiently for tiny plankton and other organic material such as sea snow to swim by, which it collects with a sticky mucus and transports into its mouth with its tentacles.
So far, so good.
Psolus squamatus is not currently monitored by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, but like many other marine species, it cannot distinguish between passing microplastics and plankton or other useful organic matter and ingests them.
The impact of man-made microplastics on the health of sessile sea cucumbers such as Psolus squamatus has not yet been researched and would certainly be an interesting topic for a doctoral thesis.
Synonyms:
Holothuria squamata O.F. Müller, 1776 · unaccepted (synonym)
Holothuria squamatus O.F. Müller, 1776 · unaccepted (misspelling (Paulay, Gustav))
Psolus asper Augustin, 1908 · unaccepted
Psolus squamatus squamatus · unaccepted (subspecies not used (Paulay, G.))
Psolus valvatus Östergren, 1904 · unaccepted (synonym)
