---
title: Deepwater Redfish (Actinopyga echinites)
scientific_name: Actinopyga echinites
common_name: Deepwater Redfish
taxon: Sea cucumber
conservation_status: VU - Vulnerable
published: 2026-08-05T23:57:33.567Z
updated: 2026-08-20T17:09:45.958Z
tags: Deepwater Redfish, Actinopyga echinites, Sea cucumber, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/echinoderms/sea-cucumber/deepwater-redfish
---

# Deepwater Redfish (*Actinopyga echinites*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea cucumber (*Holothuroidea*)
- **Size:** up to 35 cm
- **Depth:** 0-30 m
- **Diet:** Detritivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Sandy lagoon floors and seagrass margins
- **Conservation status:** VU - Vulnerable

## How to recognise it

- beige to rusty brown, often coated in sand
- about 20 stubby feeding tentacles
- five anal teeth
- length up to 35 cm

A heavy-bodied holothurian growing to roughly 35 cm (14 in), beige through rusty brown, with a thick wrinkled body wall that is nearly always dusted with adhering sand. Around twenty stubby tentacles ring the mouth, and five hard teeth guard the vent at the other end. Despite the English name it is not a deepwater animal at all - the name comes from the trade, not the habitat.

It favors sandy lagoon floors and the margins of seagrass, from wading depth down to about 30 m (100 ft), lying half-buried by day and feeding through the night. Sediment goes in at one end, is stripped of its organic film, and comes out the other as clean castings; this constant turnover aerates the top few centimetres of sand and slows the build-up of decaying matter. That same abundance made it a target: it is among the most heavily fished sea cucumbers across its range, and populations near settled coasts have thinned markedly. Divers here still meet it often enough on sheltered sand, usually as a motionless brown log that turns out, on a second look, to be steadily eating.

## Also known as

- **English:** Deep Water Redfish, Hedgehog Sea Cucumber, Brown Beauty
- **French:** Holothurie brune, Le Rouge
- **Japanese:** トゲクリイロナマコ
- **Chinese:** 棘輻肛參
- **Russian:** Актинопига колючая
- **FIJ:** Dri tabua
- **HIN:** Pal attai
- **ID:** Kapok, Kunyi, Ladu-ladu
- **MLG:** Trokena
- **TAM:** Goma attaya
- **TON:** Telehea loloto
- **VI:** Hải sâm mít

## Scientific synonyms

- *Actinopyga caroliniana* Tan Tiu, 1981
- *Actinopyga plebeja* (Selenka, 1867)
- *Holothuria (Holothuria) echinites* Jaeger, 1833
- *Muelleria echinites* Jaeger, 1833
- *Muelleria plebeja* Selenka, 1867

## Range

East Africa, Eastern Africa & Madagascar, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, Tanzania

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/echinoderms/sea-cucumber/deepwater-redfish)*
*Updated: August 20, 2026*