''Labidodemas rugosum'' is a species of

sea cucumber Sea cucumbers are echinoderms from the class (biology), class Holothuroidea ( ). They are benthic marine animals found on the sea floor worldwide, and the number of known holothuroid species worldwide is about 1,786, with the greatest number be ...

in the family

Holothuriidae Holothuriidae is a Family (biology), family of sea cucumbers, a type of echinoderm. Description Members of the family Holothuriidae have thick fleshy bodies and several rows of tube feet which are used for moving around and for adhering to the s ...

. It is native to the tropical Indo-Pacific region.

Description

''Labidodemas rugosum'' has a distinctive white-pink hue. It is covered in long pinkish-white papillae.

Distribution and habitat

''Labidodemas rugosum'' is found off the coasts of Asia and Africa, in the tropical

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

and the western

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. Its range extends from the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

, the east coast of Africa and Madagascar, to India and the Maldives, to Indonesia, northern Australia, the Philippines, Malaysia, New Guinea and other island groups in the western Pacific. ''Labidodemas rugosum'' is a reef-associated species, and is commonly found embedded in sand underneath

stony corals Scleractinia, also called stony corals or hard corals, are marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria that build themselves a hard skeleton. The individual animals are known as polyps and have a cylindrical body crowned by an oral disc in which a mo ...

. It lives in the eulittoral zone, between underwater.

Conservation status

''Labidodemas rugosum'' is uncommon but widespread throughout the Indo-Pacific, and not widely fished throughout its range. Due to this, the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...

has assessed the conservation status of this sea cucumber as

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

References

Holothuriidae Echinoderms of the Indian Ocean Echinoderms of the Pacific Ocean Animals described in 1875 {{Holothuroidea-stub