... bbc earth bbcearth EarthOnSight Great Barrier Reef great barrier reef documentary ocean documentary pearlfish pearlfish and sea cucumber pearlfish hides inside a sea cucumber sea cucumber Wildlife. The Great Pearlfish, Conqueror of Sea Cucumber Bums, Devourer of Reproductive Organs, All-Around Decent Critter to Anything But a Sea Cucumber. Sea cucumbers are echinoderms from the class Holothuroidea.They are marine animals with a leathery skin and an elongated body containing a single, branched gonad.Sea cucumbers are found on the sea floor worldwide. As the sea cucumber pumps water in and out to breathe, the fish slowly but surely wiggle their way inside. D) Sea cucumbers are into butt stuff. Sea cucumbers use this structure to extract oxygen. C) When you’re prey like the pearlfish, ya gotta do whatever it takes to stay alive. I’d previously written about how the Animal Kingdom exhibit the Museum of Sex turned my world upside down and inside out. 6) Sea cucumbers range in size, the smallest species can be as small as 0.12 inches while … Image: John E. Randall. Pearlfish, also called fierasfer, or cucumber fish, any of about 32 species of slim, eel-shaped marine fishes of the family Carapidae noted for living in the bodies of sea cucumbers, pearl oysters, starfishes, and other invertebrates.Pearlfishes are primarily tropical and are found around the world, mainly in shallow water. Below 15,000 feet, they make up 90 percent of life on the seafloor. Sea cucumbers are repellant to most predators, which makes them a perfect hiding spot for the Pearlfish. The sea cucumber is host to the parasitic pearlfish The Fierasfer, or Carapus is a small, eel-like pearlfish which actually lives most of its life as a parasite inside the body of a sea cucumber. This latter tail … Scientists say that the pearlfish will enter the sea cucumber’s teeth ridden anus to find shelter or to enter with another pearlfish as a place to mate. The pearlfish is a long, slim fish.They have no scales but they do have long fins that run along the length of their bodies. Pearlfish seek out the cloacal opening of the host and then work their way INTO the anus sometimes head first or sometimes tail first, working themselves backwards into the anus of the sea cucumber. One very special case, discovered in 1977 by New Zealand biologist Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow from Jacobs University in Germany, saw no less than 15 pearlfish living inside a single sea cucumber’s anus. After smelling their way to an ideal host, the pearlfish swims head-first into the void. Pearlfish usually like to live alone inside a sea cucumber, but sometimes a pair will take up residence in the same host. Relationship: Commensalism "The pearlfish uses the sea cucumber for a hide-out from predators.The pearlfish will live in the sea cucumber’s anus, backing into … The pearlfish will either simply take up space inside the sea cucumber, or it will actually eat the sea cucumbers, well, private parts. The number of holothurian (/ ˌ h ɒ l ə ˈ θj ʊər i ə n, ˌ h oʊ-/) species worldwide is about 1,717 with the greatest number being in the Asia Pacific region. 5) Most sea cucumbers are adapted to life on the seafloor, and although the number of species is high in shallow seas, they are also abundant in deep oceans. 4) Sea cucumbers are nocturnal, meaning they are active during the night. Share 10 Tweet 6 Share 2 Scan. And here you thought you were done reading about sea cucumber butts. They are elongated, scaleless, and often transparent. But, this isn’t even about sex. Several species of parasitic pearlfish actually live inside sea cucumber bums. 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