Endangered
Isostichopus fuscus
Isostichopus fuscus
Isostichopus fuscus is an animal in the family Stichopodidae (order Synallactida), recorded as Endangered.
The animal
Isostichopus fuscus is a sea cucumber in the family Stichopodidae native to the eastern Pacific.
It was first described to science by German biologist Hubert Ludwig in 1875.
Range and habitat
This species is found in the Pacific Coast of Mexico, among them the Gulf of California, and down through Central America to South America as far as the northern coast of Peru, as well as in eastern Pacific islands, among them the Galápagos. Within these depths, I. Fuscus has been found to predominate areas where high amounts of Ulva sp. Are located.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
Recent studies suggest that a blend of seaweed species such as P. Durvillaei and S. Ecuadoreanum are an optimal diet, although they can survive off of other types of seaweed. Spawning occurs in Isostichopus fuscus from July to September, with post-spawning gonads occurring in October.
Peaks in reproduction followed by drastic declines have characterized I. Fuscus as an episodic spawner, in that water temperature is thought to play a large role as a reproductive indicator. The reproductive cycle of the brown sea cucumber consists of five gonadal stages: under-determined, gametogenesis, maturity, spawning and post-spawning.
In crisis
The fishery is typically conducted in an unsustainable manner, mostly in North and South America, that has caused the populations to decline. The brown sea cucumber is classified by the IUCN as Critically Endangered.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix III. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Isostichopus fuscus is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Isostichopus fuscus, Wikidata item Q2364105. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
