07-28-2018, 04:39 PM
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PW Enlightenment
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Join Date: Oct 2007
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Watch This Giant Sea Cucumber Expel a Spiraling Po...
Talk about needing some privacy rights! 
https://www.livescience.com/63169-po...ber-video.html
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Recent footage from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean captured activity from another type of bottom — the rear end of a sea cucumber, as it produced a truly impressive amount of sediment-packed poo. 
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The action  unfurled on the YouTube channel SouthernIslanderDive, which posts underwater videos of marine life in locations near Japan. At the beginning of the video, shared online July 18, a bumpy-skinned flesh tube squats on the seafloor, an opening at one end — the creature's [bum]— gaping and closing. 
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The animal, a soft-bodied sea cucumber, then rapidly expels a long, snake-like mass of sandy poo. Rid of some extra weight, it slowly drifts away from the camera, presumably much lighter than it was before. 
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Sea cucumbers feed on organic matter that drifts to the seafloor and then poop out the inedible sand, as one of them demonstrated in the video. In doing so, sea cucumbers perform a function similar to that of earthworms, known as bioturbation — biologically processing sediment — and thereby improving its ability to conduct water and oxygen, Mah explained.
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"They poop out aerated, inorganic residue, and it frees up sediment for other life to take advantage of it," he said. "By feeding on the organic materials, they release a product which helps to stabilize the environment."
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