Sandfish Sea Cucumber

The sandfish (Holothuria scabra) is a sea cucumber of Indo-Pacific shallow seagrass beds and sandy bottoms, one of the most valuable species in the dried sea cucumber (bêche-de-mer) trade. Overfishing led the IUCN to list it as Endangered in 2013, and a 2026 reassessment moved it to Vulnerable as fisheries management and hatchery restocking expanded.

🧬 Field Guide Specimen: Open Sandfish Sea Cucumber in the CRV Science Field Guide to log the specimen, see its place among the Deuterostomia lineages in the Cladogram Explorer, and test your recall in the Red List conservation game.

Sandfish swallow sediment and digest the organic matter in it, then excrete cleaned sand. This stirs the seabed (bioturbation), recycles nutrients and may help buffer the acidity of seawater around them.

Dried sandfish fetch high prices in Asian markets. Heavy harvest has wiped out populations in many areas, and the animals reproduce slowly in the wild.

Hatcheries in places like Madagascar, the Solomon Islands and Vietnam raise juveniles that are released into protected sea pens or grow-out areas, an approach to supply the trade and restock reefs.

• Orange-footed Sea Cucumber — another harvested sea cucumber
• Ocean acidification — buffering of seawater