---
title: Snake Sea Cucumber (Synapta maculata)
scientific_name: Synapta maculata
common_name: Snake Sea Cucumber
taxon: Sea cucumber
published: 2023-12-24T22:48:48.682Z
updated: 2026-08-13T16:22:23.146Z
tags: Snake Sea Cucumber, Synapta maculata, Sea cucumber, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/echinoderms/sea-cucumber/snake-sea-cucumber
---

# Snake Sea Cucumber (*Synapta maculata*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea cucumber (*Holothuroidea*)
- **Size:** up to 3 m
- **Depth:** 0-15 m
- **Diet:** Detritivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Seagrass and rubble in shallow lagoons
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Poisonous

## How to recognise it

- extremely long thin body, snake-like rather than sausage-shaped
- pale with dark blotches and fine longitudinal lines
- fifteen feathery tentacles around the mouth at the front end
- no tube feet anywhere on the body
- length up to 3 m

Three meters (10 ft) of thin, spotted, snake-like animal draped over seagrass at night - the longest sea cucumber in the world, and one that most divers walk past thinking they have seen a rope.

It moves without tube feet, which every other sea cucumber here relies on. Instead its skin is full of microscopic anchor-shaped plates that hook into whatever they touch, and the animal hauls itself along by gripping the bottom with its own hide. Touch one and it feels like velcro, because that is functionally what it is.

That grip is also a trap for a curious diver. Pull, and the skin tears rather than lets go, and the animal can shed a length of itself to escape. It will regrow it, but there is no reason to make it.

Fifteen feathery tentacles work around the mouth at the leading end, mopping detritus and algal film off seagrass blades and sand. Like its relatives it carries saponins in the body wall, so the usual rule applies: hands away from the face, and leave the animal where it is.

## Also known as

- **English:** Snake Sea Cucumber
- **French:** Synapte maculée
- **Italian:** Oloturia serpente indo-pacifica
- **German:** Gefleckte Wurmseegurke
- **Czech:** Sumýš obrovský
- **Japanese:** オオイカリナマコ
- **Chinese:** 斑錨參
- **Russian:** Голотурия синапта пятнистая (Голотурия полосатая)
- **HU:** Piros tengeriuborka
- **TH:** ปลิงสร้อยลูกปัด

## Scientific synonyms

- *Fistularia doreyana* Quoy & Gaimard, 1834
- *Holothuria (Fistularia) oceanica* Lesson, 1830
- *Holothuria (Tiedemannia) beselii* Jaeger, 1833
- *Holothuria maculata* Chamisso & Eysenhardt, 1821
- *Oncinolabes fuscescans* Brandt, 1835
- *Synapta agassizii* Selenka, 1867
- *Synapta astrolabi* Held, 1857
- *Synapta beselii* (Jaeger, 1833)
- *Synapta mammillosa* Eschscholtz, 1829
- *Synapta oceanica* (Lesson, 1830)

## Range

East Africa, Eastern Africa & Madagascar, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Red Sea, Seychelles, Tanzania

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