sea cucumbers text index | photo index
Phylum Echinodermata > Class Holothuroidea
Armoured sea cucumber
Psolidium sp.*
Family Psolidae
updated Apr 2020

Where seen? This small sea cucumber is seen stuck very firmly onto rocks in dark places, so far at Changi and Pulau Ubin.

Features: About 1cm long. Body oval with distinct flat underside. Upperside covered with hard calcareous plates. Colours light maroon, bright orange, brown. Much like a limpet, it clamps tightly onto a hard surface with several rows of tiny tube feet on the underside. Mouth and anus facing upwards on conical protrusions. When submerged, short feeding tentacles emerge from the mouth and tiny tube feet emerge all over the body.

Sometimes mistaken for a tiny colony of hard corals or a hard ascidian.

Changi, Jun 12

Mouth (or anus) on conical protrusion.

Rows of tube feet on the flat underside.
Changi, Jun 12

Changi, Jun 12

Short feeding tentacles.

Tiny tube feet all over the body and on underside.

*Species are difficult to positively identify without close examination.
On this website, they are grouped by external features for convenience of display
Armoured sea cucumbers on Singapore shores
On wildsingapore flickr
Other sightings on Singapore shores

Pulau Ubin, Jul 24
Photo by Chay Hoon on facebook.
Links
  • Family Psolidae on SeaLife Base: Technical fact sheet.
  • Family Psolidae in North Australian Sea Cucumbers on Marine Species Identification Portal: Technical fact sheet.
References
  • Ong J. Y. & H. P. S. Wong. Sea cucumbers (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea) from the Johor Straits, Singapore. 10 July 2015. The Comprehensive Marine Biodiversity Survey: Johor Straits International Workshop (2012) The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 2015 Supplement No. 31, Pp. 273-291.
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