---
title: Steinitz's Sea Cucumber (Bohadschia steinitzi)
scientific_name: Bohadschia steinitzi
common_name: Steinitz's Sea Cucumber
taxon: Sea cucumber
conservation_status: DD - Data Deficient
published: 2026-08-05T23:57:33.586Z
updated: 2026-08-20T17:09:45.976Z
tags: Steinitz's Sea Cucumber, Bohadschia steinitzi, Sea cucumber, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/echinoderms/sea-cucumber/steinitzs-sea-cucumber
---

# Steinitz's Sea Cucumber (*Bohadschia steinitzi*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea cucumber (*Holothuroidea*)
- **Size:** up to 24 cm
- **Depth:** 2-25 m
- **Diet:** Detritivore
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Sand and rubble at the base of reef
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** DD - Data Deficient

## How to recognise it

- yellowish body, darker brown along the back
- smooth soft body wall
- sticky white threads released when disturbed
- length up to 24 cm

A soft, smooth-walled sea cucumber to roughly 24 cm (9 in), typically yellowish with a browner back, though the color varies enough that identification from a photograph alone is often tentative. There are no anal teeth and no prominent papillae; the outline is a simple, slightly tapered cylinder, and adhering sand frequently obscures the pattern.

It occupies sand and rubble at the foot of reef, from about 2 m to 25 m (7 to 80 ft), moving slowly across open bottom and feeding on the organic film in sediment. Like the rest of its genus it defends itself with Cuvierian tubules - sticky white threads ejected through the body wall that tangle whatever provoked them. The species was described in 1963 and honours Heinz Steinitz, whose work at the Gulf of Aqaba laid much of the groundwork for marine biology in this region; a good number of the animals named in the decades that followed came from collections he built. It appears to be restricted to this sea and its immediate surrounds.

## Also known as

- **Russian:** Богадшия Штейница

## Range

Red Sea

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