{"id":1273,"date":"2014-05-02T12:39:26","date_gmt":"2014-05-02T00:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2014\/05\/another_see-through_animal_a_rather_lovely_image\/"},"modified":"2014-05-02T12:39:26","modified_gmt":"2014-05-02T00:39:26","slug":"another-see-through-animal-a-rather-lovely-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2014\/05\/another-see-through-animal-a-rather-lovely-image\/","title":{"rendered":"another see-through animal (& a rather lovely image)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw this little critter a while back, over on Pharyngula<\/a>, & put it on the list of Things To Blog About. Somehow, it took me a while to actually get onto it, but we've got there in the end \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Image credit: Laurence Madin, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution\/CMarZ, Census of Marine Life<\/a><\/p>\n

I was a bit puzzled when first I saw this picture – the animal has a vague flavour of jellyfish to it, but I knew it couldn't be one due to its tubular gut. (Jellyfish and their relatives have a sac-like gastrovascular cavity, where a single opening serves as both mouth and anus). So I read on, and found out that it's actually a sea cucumber, in the same phylum as starfish, sea urchins, brittle stars, and the less-familiar feather stars and sea lilies<\/a>.  It belongs to the genus Enypniastes, <\/em>but has been dubbed the 'headless chicken fish' in this most entertaining blog over at Something Fishy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I was surprised to find that Enypniastes <\/em>is able to swim (although apparently this behaviour isn't all that unusual<\/a>), something it does v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y using the cape of tentacles at its anterior end. It feeds on detritus in the deep ocean, and like all sea cucumbers, the contents of its digestive tract exit the body through a cloaca, a 'multipurpose' structure. In the case of the holothuroids, this multipurposing includes gas exchange, using complex 'respiratory trees branching off from the cloaca. A while back I wrote more about these structures<\/a>, which may also serve as both anti-predator devices and homes for small fish…<\/p>\n

I think perhaps I should add the see-through Enypniastes<\/em> to the list of creatures for my next talk on the weird and the wonderful \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw this little critter a while back, over on Pharyngula, & put it on the list of Things To Blog About. Somehow, it took me a while to actually get onto it, but we've got there in the end \ud83d\ude42 Image credit: Laurence Madin, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution\/CMarZ, Census of Marine Life I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,37],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nanother see-through animal (& a rather lovely image) : BioBlog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2014\/05\/another-see-through-animal-a-rather-lovely-image\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"another see-through animal (& a rather lovely image) : BioBlog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I saw this little critter a while back, over on Pharyngula, & put it on the list of Things To Blog About. 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