---
title: Black Sea Cucumber (Holothuria atra)
scientific_name: Holothuria atra
common_name: Black Sea Cucumber
taxon: Sea cucumber
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2023-12-24T22:37:18.777Z
updated: 2026-08-13T16:15:21.822Z
tags: Black Sea Cucumber, Holothuria atra, Sea cucumber, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/echinoderms/sea-cucumber/black-sea-cucumber
---

# Black Sea Cucumber (*Holothuria atra*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea cucumber (*Holothuroidea*)
- **Size:** up to 60 cm
- **Depth:** 0-20 m
- **Diet:** Detritivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Sand and rubble in shallow lagoons, often in numbers
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Fission
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- smooth jet-black body, usually dusted with a coat of sand
- no visible spines or papillae, unlike the knobbly species
- often lying in the open in bright shallow water
- releases a red fluid when handled
- length up to 60 cm

A black sausage lying in the open on bright sand, up to 60 cm (24 in), usually with a coat of sand stuck to its back. The sand is deliberate. Black in shallow tropical water overheats, and the animal covers itself with sediment as shade, keeping bare only the parts it needs.

It is a sediment processor, and the scale is worth stating. It takes in sand at one end, strips the film of bacteria, algae and detritus off every grain, and passes the cleaned sand out at the other. A dense population turns over tons of the lagoon floor in a year, which is one reason sea cucumber fisheries change the places they empty out.

Some of them do not bother with sex. This species can reproduce by dividing: the body constricts across the middle and pulls itself into two, and each half regrows what it lacks. A population can be largely clones of a few individuals.

Handled or attacked, it releases a red fluid carrying holothurin - a saponin, toxic to small fish and thoroughly unwelcome in an eye. Harmless on skin. Wash your hands before touching your mask, and put the animal back the way you found it rather than upside down.

## Also known as

- **English:** Lollyfish, Black sea cucumber, lolly fish
- **Arabic:** Sherman
- **French:** Holothurie noire de Mer Rouge, Holothurie à ocelles noires
- **Japanese:** クロナマコ
- **Chinese:** 黑海参, 黑海參
- **Russian:** Голотурия чёрная
- **BIS:** Lolifis
- **FIJ:** Loliloli
- **MLG:** Stylo noir
- **SW:** Kichupa
- **TAM:** Kuchii attai
- **TH:** ปลิงทะเลดำ
- **TON:** Loli
- **VI:** Ñia maùu, Ñia ñen

## Scientific synonyms

- *Halodeima atra* (Jaeger, 1933)
- *Holothuria (Halodeima) atra* Jaeger, 1833
- *Holothuria (Halodeima) atra amboinensis* Théel, 1886
- *Holothuria (Holothuria) atra* Jaeger, 1833
- *Holothuria (Microthele) affinis* Brandt, 1835
- *Holothuria amboinensis* Semper, 1868
- *Holothuria radackensis* Chamisso & Eysenhardt, 1821
- *Holothuria sanguinolenta* Saville-Kent, 1893

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/echinoderms/sea-cucumber/black-sea-cucumber)*
*Updated: August 13, 2026*