A soft mottled sea cucumber that comes out after dark and breaks down if it is handled.
A sea cucumber to about 35 cm, soft-bodied and squarish in section, mottled brown, green and cream, with rows of conical warts along the upper surface, each drawn to a pale point. The body wall is thin and slack and the animal changes shape as it moves. Species in this genus shed and dissolve the body wall under stress, so an animal that has been picked up frequently does not survive it.
It shelters under rubble and ledges through the day and feeds across open sand and rubble at night, taking sediment in with the tentacles and passing it through. It is a common host for the emperor shrimp, which rides on the upper surface, and for small commensal crabs, so a cucumber found on a night dive is worth a second look before moving on.
Recorded from the shallows to about 20 m.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.