---
title: Knobbly Sea Cucumber (Stichopus monotuberculatus)
scientific_name: Stichopus monotuberculatus
common_name: Knobbly Sea Cucumber
taxon: Sea cucumber
conservation_status: DD - Data Deficient
published: 2026-08-05T23:57:33.642Z
updated: 2026-08-08T16:04:43.934Z
tags: Knobbly Sea Cucumber, Stichopus monotuberculatus, Sea cucumber, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/echinoderms/sea-cucumber/knobbly-sea-cucumber
---

# Knobbly Sea Cucumber (*Stichopus monotuberculatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea cucumber (*Holothuroidea*)
- **Size:** up to 20 cm
- **Depth:** 1-20 m
- **Diet:** Detritivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Rubble and sand pockets among coral
- **Conservation status:** DD - Data Deficient

## How to recognise it

- beige body with large wart-like tubercles
- squarish cross-section
- tubercles arranged in rows along the sides
- length up to 20 cm

A beige, squarish sea cucumber to about 20 cm (8 in), its sides and back carrying rows of large wart-like tubercles that give the species its name. The body is smaller and paler than the related warty species, and the tubercles are blunter, though worn or sand-covered animals can be genuinely hard to tell apart underwater.

It occupies rubble and sand pockets among coral from about 1 m to 20 m (3 to 65 ft), tucked out of sight during the day and feeding over open surfaces after dark. Like the rest of its genus it has a body wall of mutable collagenous tissue, able to soften enough to flow into a crevice and stiffen again once inside, and it is correspondingly fragile in the hand. Identification within this group has been muddled for a long time, and several names in circulation cover more than one species; genetic work over the past two decades has begun to sort them out, which is why a photograph from this coast is worth keeping with a location and depth attached.

## Also known as

- **French:** Holothurie orange à taches noires
- **Russian:** Стихопус однобугорчатый

## Scientific synonyms

- *Holothuria monotuberculata* Quoy & Gaimard, 1834
- *Stichopus unituberculatus*

## Range

Comoros, Eastern Africa & Madagascar, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Red Sea

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/echinoderms/sea-cucumber/knobbly-sea-cucumber)*
*Updated: August 8, 2026*