Sea cucumber is rich in nutrients, rich in various enzymes and non-renewable amino acids in the body, and the cholesterol content is almost zero. People who eat sea cucumbers regularly can regulate endocrine and promote a virtuous cycle of the body. How did sea cucumbers with so many advantages survive in the long history? In order to protect itself when it is in danger, sea cucumbers can also “self-cut and drain their entrails”. What special function does it have so that it will not die even if its internal organs are discharged?
Sea cucumber is known as the “living fossil of the ocean”. It belongs to the marine echinoderms, and it appeared much earlier than the dinosaurs. Sea cucumbers have a history of more than 600 million years. Sea cucumbers have a relatively wide range of activities, and they can survive in shallow seas to 8,000 meters deep. Their food is very simple, they are plankton and algae that other fish disdain. Sea cucumbers have strong reproductive capacity. An adult sea cucumber can lay as many as 5 million eggs in the spring breeding period. This powerful reproductive ability has allowed it to survive a long historical process.
To survive, sea cucumbers will change color like chameleons on land. When they move around seaweed and seaweed, their body will turn into a green color similar to seaweed and seaweed; when their active area is in a place with reefs, their body color is light blue or brown. These good protective colors protect the sea cucumbers to the utmost extent, but sometimes they cannot completely avoid accidents.
When sea cucumbers are in danger, they have their own unique skills, which is to eject the internal organs from their excretion holes. These excreted internal organs attracted the enemy’s attention, and at this time the sea cucumber took the opportunity to escape by the reaction force of the excretion. Many animals have this function of protecting themselves, such as gecko’s tail and starfish’s arm.
Sea cucumbers that have lost their internal organs will not die because of this. They will regenerate new internal organs in about 50 days. There is a kind of connective tissue in the body of sea cucumber, which will make the body have a strong regeneration function. This self-excision of internal organs can be used repeatedly, so sea cucumbers have more chances of survival. Researchers even cut a healthy sea cucumber ring into three sections. After three to five months, they will grow into three new sea cucumbers.
Unlike some animals that hibernate, sea cucumbers move to reefs and rocks on the seabed for summer dormancy when the seawater temperature exceeds 20 degrees Celsius. At this time, their bodies shrink and become hard, and they can’t eat or move. Fish in the sea will not take it as food by mistake. When the sea cools down in autumn, the sea cucumber wakes up to continue its activities.
