-- Shares Facebook Twitter Reddit Email From their bizarre name to their blobby worm shape to the fact that its anus is also a mouth , sea cucumbers are some of the most outlandish things in the ocean. There are more than 1,700 species in the world, each one as otherworldly as the next, most shaped like the titular vegetable (a cucumber), albeit covered in leathery skin and with featuring strange branch-like appendages. It is difficult to imagine that such a creature can even exist, much less be prevalent all over the ocean floor.
They're even commonly eaten by humans . Yet a recent study in the Biodiversity Data Journal , reinforces the idea that sea cucumbers are more than aquatic curiosities; they actually serve an important role in protecting the ocean from human activity. Related Scientists discover ocean fungus that eats plastic The researchers describe a newly-discovered sea cucumber that has pale pink violet skin and 214 zig-zagging tube feet.
Enjoying a life of crawling the ocean floor to gobble up fish waste, algae and various organic matter, the newly-dubbed Synallactes mcdanieli is named after Canadian naturalist Neil McDaniel. Importantly, the new sea cucumber also does its part to protect the sea from the ravages of human activity like global heating and pollution. "The world's oceans are under unprecedented pressure from overfishing, habitat destruction and pollution.
" "Knowing the mega-diversity of the ocean is a huge task. The world's oceans are under unprece.