Japanese sea cucumber
Amazing fact
The Japanese sea cucumber has tube feet arranged in bands along its underside.
北海道立総合研究機構 稚内水産試験場
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
The Japanese sea cucumber has tube feet arranged in bands along its underside.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Japanese sea cucumber
- Scientific name
- Apostichopus japonicus
- Japanese name
- マナマコ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Class
- Holothuroidea
- Order
- Synallactida
- Family
- Stichopodidae
- Genus
- Apostichopus
A sea cucumber that includes forms called 'aoko' and 'kuroko', named for differences in body color.
It stretches out the tentacles around its mouth to eat organic matter and other bits mixed into the sand.
To protect itself from enemies, it can stiffen its body, or soften it to squeeze into narrow gaps between rocks.
How the Japanese sea cucumber lives
After hatching, the larvae drift in the water. During the larval stage called auricularia, it eats phytoplankton. Later, its body shrinks and changes form, and it begins living on the seabed.
北海道立総合研究機構 稚内水産試験場Basic data
- Diet
- Organic matter in sand and other materialアクアマリンふくしま
- Range
- Sakhalin to Hokkaido and Kagoshima Prefecture鳥羽水族館
Where the Japanese sea cucumber 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
- マナマコ
- 简体中文
- 仿刺参
- 繁體中文
- 仿刺參
- 한국어
- 돌기해삼
- Português (Brasil)
- Pepino-do-mar-de-espinhos-japonês
- Русский
- Дальневосточный трепанг
- Türkçe
- Deniz Hıyarı
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- アクアマリンふくしま — マナマコChecked: 2026-11-03
- 鳥羽水族館 — マナマコChecked: 2026-11-03
- 北海道立総合研究機構 稚内水産試験場 — マナマコ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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