Holothuria impatiens

Holothuria impatiens has an elongated cylindrical body and grows to a length of about . The leathery skin is mottled brown, grey or purplish-brown, often banded in alternating bands of pale and dark colour. The surface is covered with low, rounded papillae, feeling rough to the touch, and this distinguishes this species from the otherwise similar Holothuria hilla. Some of the papillae are surrounded by concentric brown rings. Embedded in the skin are bony ossicles in the form of smooth rounded buttons and square tables. There is a crown of about twenty tentacles at the anterior, thinner end, and this end may be darker in colour than the posterior end. ==Distribution and habitat==

Holothuria impatiens has a wide distribution, its range including the tropical Indo-Pacific, the tropical western Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, and the Mediterranean Sea and coasts of France. It is typically found on reef flats, in lagoons, or in open areas, usually underneath rocks or coral rubble, at depths from about down to . ==Ecology==

Holothuria impatiens may get its common name from the fact that it readily expels sticky cuvierian tubules (enlargements of the respiratory tree that float freely in the body cavity) when handled, On the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, reproduction takes place once a year, in late spring or early summer. Females produce a small number of large eggs; some related species of sea cucumbers additionally reproduce asexually by transverse fission, but H. impatiens has never been observed to do this. ==References==