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Bob Carney

@below500m.bsky.social

LSU Emeritus Professor of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences at LSU, interested in deep-sea megafauna especially holothuroids

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

ID just to phylum can be hard for video observation of deep animals. Okeanos Explorer ~2200m, Sangihe Talaud Region EX1004L2 Dive 10 logged "nudibranch". Archival HD video reveals holothuroid-like papillae and tubefeet! Fantastic research asset - www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/ocean-exploration/video/

The images are frame grabs from high definition seafloor video taken from NOAA's Okeanos Explorer in 2010 on Dive 10 of Leg 2 during Deep-Sea Exploration Sangihe Talaud Regions (Indonesia). They show an unusual purple animal on a brown mud bottom. First the animal is shown in it's normal posture and next, halfway flipped over revealing the ventral surface.

Nudibranch (sea slug) was a good initial guess. Those gastropods come in a fantastic array of colors and shapes. Paired anterior antennae are one clue to identification. When tipped up, however, a holothuroid-like flat ventral side shows. The main clues are a fringe of papillae all around and double rows of tubefeet in the middle.

Based on review of archival video a better guess is an animal similar to the synallactid holothuroid Benthothuria which has fewer dorsal spikes but the same purple color.

An outstanding scientific resource is NOAA Ocean Exploration online-accessible archive
www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/ocean-exploration/video/

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Two ~ 1cm Enypniastes. Left - NOAA Okeanos Expl., in situ, full zoom, Gulf of Mexico. Right- Larry Madin, WHOI, wetlab macro-photo, Sulu Sea. Juveniles in Atl/GoM and Indo/Pac both have 10 tentacles.

Enypniastes is a genus of holothuroids that is modified for an unusual deep-sea existence. They spend only a brief time on bottom rapidly consuming the very top layer of sediment. Then they spend long periods of time a few meters above the bottom swimming, drifting and sinking back to the bottom. Pictured are to juvenile specimens estimated to be about 1 cm across. One is recorded at full zoom from a NOAA Ocean Exploration ROV. The other image was taken onboard a reseach vessel after the animal had been sampled by ROV. The swimming image was obtained through the NOAA Ocean Exploration video portal. Dr Larry Madin of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution provided the lab image.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

@bsky.app Scotoplanes Folk Art # Sea Pig Needlepoint circa 1980, Maureen Downey. Handspun and dyed yarns. Before "Sea Pig" became a thing.

Circa 1980 needlepoint cushion by Asteriodea specialist at USNMNH using hand spun and dyed yarns. Cartoon by R. Carney based on Scotoplanes globosa collected off Oregon 1972-76.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Holothuroid tentacles modelled as trees formed by bifurcating tip nodules. Just 3 parameters shift from Psolus sp. (lft) to Holothuria cinerascens (rt). The tips use an stick/release system to gather food. The tentacles are hydrostatic, elastic and flexible. # bifurcation, # Blender, # Holothuroid.

There is a rich history of studying plant branching mathematically. Many of the ideas and methods can be applied to animals that branch. In this post an image shows two types of Holothuroid feeding tentacles simulated using Python scripts and Blender 3D modelling app.
Changing just 3 parameters in the model transitions between a tall zig-zag tree that is found in the genus Psolus and a spreading tree sound in the species Holothuria cinerascens.

Much of the species diversification seen in holothuroids may reflect minor alterations in a basic system of tube bifurcations.

New interest in holothuroid tentacles comes from the large number of excellent images of live animals posted online.

The Python scripts and Blender manipulations used in this study are under development in collaboration with the AI agent Gemini

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Excellent images of Psychropotes using buoyant giant podial appendage. Bribiesca-Contreras et. al list heavy ion exclusion as the mechanism. Intriguing possibility is that the density of Mutable Collagen gels are adjusted to offset weight of gut contents . link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Buoyant "sail" orients and may lift large holothuroid drifting over abyssal bottom.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

Holothuroid dermal ossicles are a relatively simple form of stereom, crystalline calcite hard tissue unique to the phylum Echinodermata. The skin of worm-like synaptid holothuriods contain articulated pairs. A stout anchor extends through the skin and is linked by muscle to a fenestrated plate within the skin. David Maitland's image shows this well. https://www.davidmaitland.com

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