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"Crowned" is a great word for the 2,4, or more enlarged papillae at the anterior dorsal end in some elpidid deep holothuroids. Holothuroid speak like "Velum", "velar papillae", "nucal crest" take explaining. Some are transparent with almost indistinct body wall. Others are quite distinctly visible.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 11h

Hydroids - Yes! Some Enyps have them, others not. This poor creature is heavily infested. Unless focus is super tight all you see are light-colored dots connected by a thin dark web. I don't think the association has been noted anywhere.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

As far as I have seen, Enypniastes is the champion deep detritus snarffler. This "Crowned" Holo may be Amperima. Seems a bit sluggish.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Tough one, I'll guess Galatheathuria, a synallatid noted for swimming that is similar to Paelopatides that does escape swimming. Digital video can do strange things to dark images. I do not know if the "velvet-like" texture is real or artifact.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

My quick guess is Laetmogonidae: 1. Papillae tips bending in current. 2. Notice scattered small circular "warts" on body wall ? Those might be clusters of wheel-shaped ossicles.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

It's hard to tell in still images if papillae are soft or rigid. You get a few more hints from the videos. Pannychia and other Laetmogonids are long and have similar looking papillae but are on the soft side.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

When dorsal and lateral papillae look long and stiff the animal is usually in the family Deimatidae. There is a parchment-like layer of spicules in the skin.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Fascinating interaction, but there isn't much "sea cucumber like" about the prey item except maybe 2 longitudinal muscle bands.

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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 · 15/08/2026

Manmade explanations: 1. Before precise positioning, bottom/depressor weights were put at the end of cable and dragged on bottom. 2. Towed or "drift" cameras often bounced on bottom unintentionally. With low sedimentation rates, those could even be HMS Challenger tracks! Check dates and places.

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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 · 31/07/2026

Great shot of feeding tentacles. They appear to be based on bifurcating water-vascular tube, like other holothuroids. The unrolling motion is new to me. It may be associated with adhesive locomotion (reach, stick, pull) as well as feeding (de-adhesion). Fun animal.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

O'Loughlin and Cynthia Ahearn would shout "Pygal Furrow". Anterior to viewer's right. pygal : Greek for rump as in "Plumber's pygal" 2005. A review of pygal-furrowed Synallactidae (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea)... Memoirs Museum Victoria 62: 147-179. doi.org/10.24199/j.m...

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

EVEN MORE FUN Nucal crest I count 4 very large/long unfused dorsal papillae. Continuous with body and with obvious water-vascular lumen. Question as to whether these are truely super w-v tubefeet or coelomic pockets. I vote water vascular. Nodules may keep fresh detritus out of the old mud.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

NICE! "Nucal crest" possibly adjustable enlarged partially fused dorsal papillae. May help orient tentacles by creating righting moment. Tentacles equal or exceed podia size...have locomotion and feeding function? Big simple tentacles look very much like pentata larvae stage except 10 rather than 5.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Took a while to find the link. NOAA hides old stuff very effectively. archive.oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/expl... With luck you'll be linked to a Benthothuria off bottom.

archive.oceanexplorer.noaa.gov

Gulf of Mexico 2012: Mission Logs: April 24: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Purple "helmet" is probably Benthothuria in the annoying order Persiculida. The annoying part is that there are no identifying spicules and this particular genus quickly turns into purple goo. When sampled the body is a stiff gel.

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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 · 26/05/2026

AI says Aristotle didn't group them with echinoderms and described them by analogy them "sea testicle". Cucumber as a formal name "Cucumaria" appeared 1830. We all see what we want to see.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Useful but currently invalid generic name is Scotoanassa...swim-adapted Peniagone. Possibly many species and can be locally/temporally abundant. See: Gluck et al 1989, L&O, 34(5), 913–930 check research gate. This one has zero ven-lat podia tentacles between tentacles and terminal "fin".

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Tell Rose that some holothuroids RESPIRE not INGEST through their butts. Their gas exchange organ branches off that end of the gut. Our lungs branch off much closer to the mouth. Similar function just different ends.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Flower-like asphalt seafloor extrusion. Open question were temps hot enough to melt asphalt, or cold process slurry of asphaltenes + volatiles hydrocarbons squeezed and solidifies as the volatiles escape. Some samples have been crunchy of the outside while chewy within.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

Listening to a mockingbird sing while the silverbell tree dies. Louisiana rice vodka makes the bird song more joyful but does nothing to make the tree's approaching demise less sorrowful.

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Bob Carney @below500m.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

"Why do men, sitting at the microscope, examine the calcareous plates of a sea-cucumber, and, finding a new arrangement and number, feel an exaltation and give the new species a name, and write about it possessively? It would be good to know the impulse truly..." J. Steinbeck & E. Ricketts

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