These spiny or slimy ocean creatures display an astonishing diversity of appearances, behaviors and lifestyles—and many are ...

Another fun fact about sea cucumbers is that they breathe through their butts. Sometimes, when they open to pull in water, pearlfish swim inside. This fish then takes shelter inside the sea ...

Ethan Daniels/ Shutterstock Most sea cucumbers reproduce by releasing eggs into the water to be fertilised. Some species in cooler waters fertilise their eggs inside the body instead and brood them ...

Related: Sea cucumbers pinch out '5 Eiffel Towers worth' of poop per reef, per year These eel-like fish often — but not always — make a home for one inside their host. "As far as we know ...

Some use camouflage or mimicry, while others have protective armor. Sea cucumbers, however, use one of the most unusual tactics we’ve seen. As you can see in the above video, they shoot their ...

This sea cucumber has a comedic ... These tubules can expand up to 20 times their original length with water pumping inside from the respiratory tree. The tubules become sticky upon contact ...

or by caging corals with and without sea cucumbers inside the cages. In both experiments, corals near sea cucumbers were strikingly less likely to become diseased and die. Sea cucumbers are the ...

Scientists on a submersible in the Pacific Ocean found a 1-foot-long sea creature with 24 “feet” and discovered a new species, a study said. Getty Images/iStockphoto Several miles below the ...