Sea pineapple
Amazing fact
Fish sometimes use the inside of a sea pineapple as a place to lay their eggs.
新潟大学佐渡自然共生科学センター臨海実験所
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
Fish sometimes use the inside of a sea pineapple as a place to lay their eggs.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Sea pineapple
- Scientific name
- Halocynthia roretzi
- Japanese name
- マボヤ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Class
- Ascidiacea
- Order
- Pleurogona
- Family
- Pyuridae
- Genus
- Halocynthia
It lives in the seas from Hokkaido to northern Kyushu, and off the Korean Peninsula and the coast of China.
It is closely related to animals with backbones, like humans, and as a larva it swims about looking like a tadpole.
How the Sea pineapple lives
As an adult, it lives attached to rocks and similar surfaces on the seabed. It takes seawater into its body and eats phytoplankton and other food in the water.
鶴岡市立加茂水族館アクアマリンふくしまBasic data
- Range
- Hokkaido to northern Kyushu, the Korean Peninsula, and the Chinese coast
Where the Sea pineapple has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- マボヤ
- 简体中文
- 真海鞘
- 繁體中文
- 海鳳梨
- 한국어
- 멍게
- Español
- Piña de mar
- Italiano
- Ananas di mare
- العربية
- أناناس البحر
- Tiếng Việt
- Dứa biển
- Русский
- Халоцинтия бугорчатая
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 鳥羽水族館 — マボヤChecked: 2026-11-04
- アクアマリンふくしま — マボヤChecked: 2026-11-07
- 鶴岡市立加茂水族館 — マボヤChecked: 2026-11-07
- 新潟大学佐渡自然共生科学センター臨海実験所 — マボヤChecked: 2026-11-07
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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