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I See a Purple Sea Cucumber

January 17, 2018

A purple elasipodida holothurian crawls on the seafloor more than 3,000 feet beneath the ocean surface at the base of a seamount off the Galápagos Islands. In August 2015, an international research team led by WHOI used high-resolution sonar imaging to reveal the presence of at least 35 previously unknown seamounts, or undersea mountains, on the Galápagos Platform in the Pacific Ocean. Using submersibles, they found the seamounts were teeming with rich and diverse communities of fish, crabs, lobsters, sponges, hard and soft corals, and sea cucumbers like this one. (Photo by Adam Soule, WHOI-MISO Facility, Dalio Explore Fund, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)