Overview

Birth of a Coral Island

Nature of Coral

Flowers of the Reef

The Echinoderms

Amazing Defensive Weapon

Turtles of the Reef

Strange Behavior of Reef Crabs

A Deadly Killer

World's Largest Shellfish

Strange Oysters of the Reef

Rare fish of the Coral Seas

Unusual Vegetation

Birds in Millions

Angling Unsurpassed

amazing defensive weapon

But irritate the beche-de-mer further and you are likely to see a more extra-ordinary thing happen. It may discard through the anal aperture the whole of its internal organs --- stomach, liver, intestines and reproductive organs. There appears to be little doubt that the object is to serve up to its attacker a succulent meal while sea cucumber itself (or what remains of it) crawls away to safety.

You will probably reflect that this sacrifice can serve no useful purpose, for with the whole of its internal organs gone the animal is doomed anyway. But is it? Not the beche-de-mer, for it possesses the am azing faculty of regen­erating those lost parts. It has been observed that a beche-de-mer, nine days after its complete evisceration, developed a completely new set of organs except for those necessary for reproduction.

And so, this animal, drab, sluggish and at first sight devoid of interest, has features rivalling anything to be found in this region of strange and unusual creatures. It may even harbour a small fish. One day, when the writer was collecting on the Reef, he returned with a beche-de-mer about 18 inches long and dropped it into a tub of sea water. Next morning he found a small eel-like fish swimming in the tub. This fish takes shelter within certain species of beche-de-mer and emerges only to feed.

Some of the larger species of beche­de-mer are dried and smoked for export to China where they are used for making soup much prized by Chinese epicures.