Digestive System of a Sea Cucumber
Sea Cucumbers have a diet of mostly plankton and when they can't get their teeth in that, they eat the mud they burrow in.
While eating mud:
While eating mud:
- A Sea Cucumber will burrow through the mud and opens mouth to take it in.
- Mud gets digested, after passing through the pharynx, stomach and intestine.
- The particles of the dead organisms in the mud being separated is used as food/energy, while the mud and waste from all of the digested materials continues through the body to come out the other end.
- Fecal matter is excreted out of the anus at the back end of the sea cucumber.
- The Sea Cucumber burrows itself into the floor of the sea, leaving only its front and rear ends exposed.
- The Sea Cucumber expels the tentacles located around its mouth.
- The finger-like tentacles catch plankton and other floating particles in the water.
- The tentacles continuously individually retract back into the mouth, which sucks off the caught food.
- Plankton is digested after passing through the pharynx, stomach, and intestine.
- Fecal matter is excreted out the anus at the back end of the sea cucumber.