Thousands of Chunky Pink Creatures Show Up on N. Oregon Coast: Invasion of Sea Cucumbers

Published 10/21/25 at 6:25 p.m.
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff

(Seaside, Oregon) – Piles of weird stuff on an Oregon beach: that's actually nothing new in itself. Oddities wash up from the deep blue sea all the time. (All photos Seaside Aquarium)

What is slightly new are these little pink chunks dotting Seaside right now. They're kind'a disgusting, really, sort of resembling internal organs in a way, as if some poor creature's innards were left scattered.

Plus, You don't see these particular creatures often in big numbers

. It turns out they are skin breathing sea cucumbers, left high and dry by heavy seas along the Oregon coast.

“While this is not an unusual occurrence this time of year it is remarkable how many have been left stranded,” said Seaside Aquarium's Tiffany Boothe.

They are something markedly different than your average marine flotsam and jetsam.

“Lacking tube feet, these strange animals look more like a worm than a sea cucumber,” Boothe said. “They live just past the surf, burrowed into the sand for protection. Most of the time they are just fine, nestled down in sand, but certain ocean conditions, such as heavy surf combined with low tides can dislodge them leaving them stranded along the shoreline; sometimes by the thousands.”

Their scientific name is Leptosynapta clarki, and for many years they stumped most longtime residents and even experts on the Oregon coast. Before 10 years ago, the cellphone and real documentation about this hardly ever happened.

For Boothe, it was 2015 before she saw her first one, and she'd been at the aquarium for nearly two decades by that point. Oregon Coast Beach Connection was there to document that.

There’s a reason for that: they keep themselves hidden beneath the sands – but often just barely under the sands. Burrowing sea cucumbers are not regularly seen, as they remain well tucked away under the top layers of sand, and even then a ways offshore or most commonly in bays and wetlands. However, Boothe said they are quite common along the Oregon coast.

In the past, Boothe told Oregon Coast Beach Connection that once they burrow into the mud they start feeding on organic stuff around them. When the ocean unearths them and brings them onshore, they resemble peanut worms and you may actually see them wiggling in such a way as they to burrow back into the sand.

Boothe said they don't have a respiratory tree, and instead, oxygen is exchanged through their body wall.

Part of the echinoderm family, they are related to sea stars, urchins and sand dollars. However, just because they're related doesn’t make them a happy family: two of their biggest predators are sea stars and sun stars.

Sea cucumber sighting a few years ago (Seaside Aquarium)

Sea cucumbers are found all over the Pacific Northwest and the west coast, from southern Canada down to Mexico. They are born in the springtime and immediately burrow into the sediment. By around August they reach their full size of about 35mm in length.

There is, by the way, another form of sea cucumber found along the coastline called a California sea cucumber – and this breathes out of its butt. No kidding. California Sea Cucumber Breathes Out of Its Butt: Weird Washington, Oregon Coast Science

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