Actinopyga palauensis: taxon details and analytics

Domain
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Echinodermata
Class
Holothuroidea
Order
Holothuriida
Family
Holothuriidae
Genus
Actinopyga
Species
Actinopyga palauensis
Scientific Name
Actinopyga palauensis

Summary description from Wikipedia:

Actinopyga palauensis

Actinopyga palauensis, the Panning's blackfish, is a species of sea cucumber within the family Holothuriidae. The species distribution is in the western Pacific near areas such as Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, Tonga, Niue, eastern Australia, and New Caledonia. It lives in reef environments at depths up to 30 meters, often being found crawling on sandy reef slopes, course sand with reef rubble, semi-sheltered bay reefs, and is occasionally found in lagoons and inshore reefs.

Actinopyga palauensis is blackish-brown in coloration, but appears entirely black at depth, with a bumpy texture and small sparces of papillae. The teeth are orange and noticeably rough. It grows to a max length of 40 centimeters, but individuals are more commonly found at 30 centimeters. It can weigh up to 500 grams. The max reported age of an individual was 6 years.

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Actinopyga palauensis in languages:

English
Panning's Black Sea Cucumber

Images from inaturalist.org observations:

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Actinopyga palauensis
©uwkwaj, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC)
Actinopyga palauensis
©David R, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC)
Actinopyga palauensis
©Anne Hoggett, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC)
Actinopyga palauensis
©Anne Hoggett, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC)
Actinopyga palauensis
©Adam Smith, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC)
Actinopyga palauensis
©Emily Zucker, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC)
Actinopyga palauensis
©Anne Hoggett, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC)
Actinopyga palauensis
©Anne Hoggett, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC)
Actinopyga palauensis
©sea-kangaroo, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC-ND)