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Sea Cucumber Swimming
During Dive 03 of the 2026 American Samoa ROV + Mapping Exploration expedition, this sea cucumber put on quite a show. Sea cucumbers, also known as holothurians, belong to an unusual class within the phylum Echinodermata, a name literally translating to "spiny-skinned animals." Although many sea cucumbers spend much of their lives slowly wandering across the seafloor to consume sediment-bound nutrients, certain species are capable of rising into the water column. They use powerful, rhythmic body flexes to swim upward until they reach neutral buoyancy and drift along until descending back to the seafloor for their next meal.