#5049 · 🪼 jellyfish, starfish, worms & co
Black Sea Cucumber
🇳🇱 Holothuria (Mertensiothuria) leucospilota ·Holothuria leucospilota
7 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
Holothuria leucospilota , commonly known as the black sea cucumber/ Black tarzan , is a species of marine invertebrate in the family Holothuriidae. It has been placed in the subgenus Mertensiothuria making its full scientific name Holothuria (Mertensiothuria) leucospilota . It is the type species of the subgenus and is found on the seabed in shallow water in the Indo-Pacific.
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- No confirmed wild sightings in the Netherlands on iNaturalist: you'd have to travel for this one.
- 4,229 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named by Johann Friedrich von Brandt in 1835 (191 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Black Sea Cucumber
- Nederlands
- Holothuria (Mertensiothuria) leucospilota
- scientific name
- Holothuria leucospilota
- class
- Holothuroidea
- order
- Holothuriida
- family
- Holothuriidae
- IUCN Red List
- LC · least concern
- sightings in NL
- 0
- sightings worldwide
- 4,229
- GBIF records in NL
- 0
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1835 by Johann Friedrich von Brandt
IUCN in Dutch: niet bedreigd. Blank means the sources don't say.
relatives· Holothuriidae
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 195758, Wikidata Q910290, GBIF 4343052, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.