Sausage-like animals
How to tell them apart?
updated Oct 08
Many sausage-like animals are seen on our shores, especially at low tide when they are out of water. They can look very different when they are submerged. Here's more on how to tell them apart.
Sea cucumbers
Phylum Echinodermata
Sea pen
Phylum Cnidaria
Peacock anemone
Phylum Cnidaria
Sea cucumbers are often sausage shaped. Some have bumps and other texture on the body. Others may be smooth.
The flowery sea pen looks
like a sausage when out of water
with all the polyps retracted.
Peacock anemones have
a long columnar body
that slides into a soft tube.
When submerged, feathery feeding tentacles may appear at the mouth.
When submerged, the flower-like polyps emerge all along
the length of the colony.
When submerged, the long
tentacles are extended
into the water.
More comparisons

Long black sea cucumbers
are large and worm-like too.

This is a sea anemone out of the ground.
It is usually buried in the sand.

This is a sea anemone out of the ground.
It is usually buried in the sand.

This is a spoon worm.
It is usually buried in the sand.

Eggs of a cephalopod are sometimes
seen attached in bunches to seaweeds.

This is a green seaweed.
How to tell apart worm-like animals.
 
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