Sea cucumbers
Echinoderms with very unusually shaped bodies, with a bizarre defense mechanism but a crucial role in the ecosystem.
Sea cucumbers belong to the class holothuroidae within the echinoderm phylum, inhabiting sea floors across the world’s oceans. Likewise to their name, they are shaped like a cucumber or caterpillar with their soft elongated body and leathery skin. Sea cucumbers alike have a unique method of defending themselves from predators, which is ejecting their own internal organs to tangle or scare off predators. A small amount of sea cucumbers are actually known to swim, the Enypniastes Eximia (Nicknamed the Headless Chicken Monster or Pink See-Through Fantasia) is a swimming sea cucumber that inhabits the deeper zones of the ocean.
This is what the defense mechanism of a sea cucumber looks like in action, the white stringy parts are its internal organs
Their importance in the ecosystem
Sea cucumbers play a huge and very important role in marine ecosystems, they are purely detritivores meaning they feed entirely on detritus and decomposing matter. This role of theirs is an important one due to it allowing this echinoderm to recycle nutrients and organic matter back into the soil, allowing microbes to continue the decomposition cycle.
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