Sea Apple (or Sea Cucumber)

This is a beautiful and strange specimen. The yellow polyps have suckers on the ends, and the sea apple uses them to hold onto surfaces. By attaching and releasing them, it can walk around the tank.

Here it is climbing up the glass. The yellow suckers can be clearly seen holding onto the glass. The indentation in the creature is part of how it "walks": it undulates to get from place to place.

The entire creature climbing the glass. Note the feeding tentacles at the top and the constriction in the middle, which is allowing it to climb. A pacific anemone with its clown fish can be seen on the right; a dying plate coral can be seen at the left; and two feather duster tube worms can be seen above the plate coral.

A close-up of the feeding tentacles. The tentacles are extended and collect food on the tips. Then, in turn, each tentacle is slowly moved to the central mouth, where the food is extracted. Quite a complex animal, considering that it has no "brain".

The sea apple sitting on a bed of daisy star polyps, with the flower pot coral in the background. The lighting is good because it is late day winter sun light. The specimen is now much smaller than originally because of the difficulty in feeding it.