The Far Eastern trepang is an invertebrate creature belonging to the type of echinoderms. It lives in the eastern seas. The appearance of trepangs is not very attractive and somewhat resembles worms with spikes, but they are very useful.
Far Eastern sea cucumbers have existed for more than 500 million years. These creatures have one amazing feature - regeneration. So, if it is divided into two parts, then in six months the trepang will recover completely.
What does it look like
Trepang has a slightly flattened, elongated body with a maximum length of 44 cm, a width of 9 cm. Weight can reach one and a half kilograms. The color of the creature varies from greenish-yellow to dark brown. Moreover, the color of the back is darker than the abdominal part. The mouth opening of the Far Eastern trepang is somewhat shifted to the ventral side and surrounded by tentacle rings.
The puberty of an individual occurs in the second year of life, and the whole trepang lives up to eleven years.
habitats
The creature lives in the northern part of the East China, Yellow Seas, almost the entire coast of the Sea of Japan, off the east coast of Japan. Trepangs are also found in the Sea of Okhotsk, in the coastal zones of the Kuriles, near Sakhalin. You can meet the creature at depths from the edge to 100 meters or more.
Trepang in oriental medicine
In Chinese medicine, Far Eastern trepang has been used since ancient times. Back in the sixteenth century, this creature was used to treat a variety of diseases. The emperor of China believed that the use of infusions rejuvenates the body, granting longevity, which means that he will be able to rule for a long time.
Means made from trepang helped even terminally ill people to get back on their feet. The Chinese refer to this creature as a miraculous source of vitality.
Peculiarities
The properties of the Far Eastern trepang allow it to be used to treat a variety of diseases.
Scientists conducted a series of experiments that showed that this creature contains 40 elements from the periodic table, which are necessary for normalizing metabolic processes in the human body, as well as contributing to the production of hormones and enzymes. The creature also contains an almost complete set of water-soluble vitamins, valuable biologically active substances. No organism on our planet possesses a similar composition.
Benefit
As you can see in the photo, the Far Eastern trepang does not look very attractive, although it gives the most useful meat. It contains proteins, fats, vitamins: B12, riboflavin, thiamine, etc. There are also many useful elements in meat: magnesium, phosphorus, iodine, manganese, copper, iron and more. Fat contains phosphatides and unsaturated fatty acids.
Various preparations are obtained from trepang: honey tinctures are made, covered with a charcoal rash and dried, extracts are made. Meat is consumed in food, preparing various dishes.
The benefits of honey tincture
The Far Eastern trepang on honey is especially valued. Using the tincture in courses, you can not only increase the body's immune system, but also get stable protection against viral and bacterial infections. Also, the drug has the following properties:
- helps to heal oncological ailments - due to the substances included in the composition, the drug stops the growth of malignant cells;
- normalizes blood pressure, functions of the cardiovascular system;
- helps lower cholesterol and blood sugar levels;
- treats bronchitis, tuberculosis, pneumonia and other pathologies of the respiratory system;
- normalizes the work of the gastrointestinal tract, eliminates pathologies;
- improves visual acuity;
- has a stimulating effect on mental activity, soothes;
- helps fight impotence;
- cleanses the body, removing toxins and toxins;
- has a positive effect on bone pathologies, injuries, accelerating the process of bone tissue fusion;
- accelerates regeneration processes - helps to heal any skin damage faster;
- eliminates inflammation of the oral cavity.
Useful properties of Far Eastern trepang on honey affect the appearance of a person. The tool not only heals the internal organs and systems, but also helps to rejuvenate the face - after applying honey tincture, the face becomes fresh, healthy.
Preparation of tincture
For treatment with Far Eastern trepang, you can use a ready-made tincture with honey or cook it yourself.
It is difficult to find a ready-made high-quality product, it is easier to do it yourself. For this, fresh or dried trepangs are used.
To prepare a preparation from a fresh creature, it is necessary to keep it in water for some time, and then remove all the insides. The prepared carcass is washed, cut into small pieces. All ingredients are placed in a glass container and filled with honey to the very top. The composition is infused for two months in a dark, cool place. After that, the product is filtered and poured into containers.
You can make a tincture of dried sea cucumber. To do this, the meat is soaked in water for several hours. The further procedure does not differ from that used in the preparation of the drug from a fresh carcass.
Contraindications
The tincture is a natural product that has no harm. It is recommended to use it not only for adults, but also for children.
The instructions for the use of Far Eastern trepang on honey include contraindications. This remedy should not be used by those who suffer from an allergic reaction to honey and other bee products, as well as by individual intolerance to sea cucumber. Those who suffer from hypotension should take trepang with caution, since the meat of this creature can lower blood pressure.
How to use
For the treatment and prevention of pathologies, honey tincture is taken in courses of thirty days with a break of 20 days. The remedy is taken in a tablespoon twenty minutes before meals. Use tincture 1-2 times a day.
Alcohol tincture
In addition to honey tincture, you can prepare a medicine for alcohol. The resulting remedy helps to get rid of a variety of ailments, and it is also ideal for external use in skin pathologies.
To make a tincture, you need 70% alcohol, but 40% vodka is also fine. The tincture is made from fresh sea cucumbers. First, they are soaked in sea water, after which they are gutted and washed. Then the carcasses are placed in a container and poured with alcohol so that the ratio of trepangs and alcohol is 1 to 2. The container is tightly closed. The product is infused for three weeks with occasional stirring.
The finished product is taken in the morning once a day up to 50 drops, depending on the weight of the person. The composition can be used as a wound healing and disinfecting agent.
Alcohol and honey tincture
To prepare a tincture for alcohol and honey, one hundred grams of dried sea cucumber is taken - this is 1.5-2 kg of fresh, placed in a glass container and poured with boiled cold water. The meat is soaked for twelve hours. Then the water is drained, and the carcass is finely chopped. Ready-made pieces of sea cucumber are poured with 40% alcohol - 0.5 liters of alcohol will be needed per hundred grams of meat. The product is infused in a dark, cool place for three weeks. Store the finished product in the refrigerator for no more than a year.
From the finished alcohol tincture, you can make honey-alcohol. To do this, the liquid is drained and mixed in equal proportions with honey. The composition is insisted for a day, allowing the honey to dissolve.
Other recipes
In the east, they say about the Far Eastern trepang, that this is a unique remedy that gives youth and excellent health. There are tinctures for alcohol and honey, which can be found in Japan, China, where they are very popular. In Russia, such drugs are very expensive, but they can be prepared independently.
To prepare the product, you need to take fresh sea cucumbers, soak them and gut them. Then the meat is cut into thin rings, no more than 1 cm wide. Then the meat is poured with vodka in a ratio of 1:2. The remedy is infused for three weeks in a dark, cool place. Shake the product daily. After 21 days, honey is added to the tincture in a ratio of 1: 1 with the resulting alcohol infusion. Mix everything well until the honey is completely dissolved. Take the remedy for a teaspoon once a day before lunch. Course duration - 1 month. Then make a ten-day break and repeat the course.
People who have experienced the healing properties of sea cucumber continue to take it as often as possible, because it is a rare, scarce product. Because of its small distribution, the cultivation of the Far Eastern trepang began. You can watch an interesting and useful video about this process.
Trepang application
The extract of the Far Eastern trepang and other means from it help with a breakdown. Meat is able to increase metabolism, enhance digestive functions, regulate intestinal motility, normalize the work of the stomach, liver, pancreas.
Sea cucumber is useful for diabetics. The substances included in its composition help to remove toxins from the body, ammonia. This seafood is indicated for cirrhosis of the liver, hepatitis.
When using sea ginseng (as it is called in China), the work of the heart may change, which may require replenishment of related substances.
The consumption of trepang tinctures has a positive effect on the musculoskeletal system, as it helps to accelerate the fusion of bones, and also has a positive effect on the body with sciatica.
With skin pathologies, wounds, trepang helps to accelerate tissue regeneration. Also, the extract and tinctures help to dissolve scars, remove adhesions, and promote the healing of trophic ulcers. Seafood helps with purulent wounds, boils, mastitis, they are treated for burns and frostbite.
From tinctures make solutions for rinsing the mouth.
Alcohol tinctures have a pronounced effect, so in most cases they are used in the first half of the day and no more than fifteen drops, but there are exceptions (depending on what pathology is being treated and what is the weight of the patient).
When used correctly, trepang helps to normalize the work of the heart, reducing the amplitude and increasing the force of compression, thereby eliminating bradycardia.
The drug has a positive effect on immunity, as it contains a lot of micro and macro elements, vitamins.
Where does the sea cucumber live?
The largest populations of sea cucumbers live off the coast of Sakhalin, Korea, and Japan. It can also be found near the Kuril Islands, in Peter the Great Bay, near the island of Kyushu.
Trepang prefers warm, shallow places, likes to hide in thickets of algae under mussels or in upper layers of silt. During the day it rises to the surface of the water. On hot days, the creature descends to a depth of 150 meters.
Characteristic
As you can see in the photo, the Far Eastern trepang looks more like a worm: it is flattened from the sides, and can be up to 40 cm long. Its body consists of two parts: on the one hand, there is a mouth and tentacles, with which it scoops up the upper layers of sediment and sends it to the mouth all microorganisms contained in it. The second part is the exit, i.e. the anus. These parts are interconnected by the intestines. This type of structure is called reduced. In fact, nature left the most significant organs, and the rest disappeared.
If the sea cucumber is divided into three parts, then the extreme ones immediately begin to crawl away on their own, and the middle one lies a little and also begins to crawl. Gradually, all three parts become independent individuals, and after 2-6 months each of them becomes a full-fledged individual of a large size.
On the back of the trepang there are conical outgrowths arranged in four rows. On the abdomen there are small legs that allow the cucumber to move along the bottom. His movements are somewhat reminiscent of the movement of a caterpillar.
It feeds on trepang microorganisms, plankton, pieces of algae. Once in the mouth, food moves through the intestines, where nutrients are absorbed. Then all the excess comes out through the anus. In search of food, sea cucumbers go at night or in the afternoon, and in the morning they sleep. In winter and autumn, individuals almost do not eat, and with the beginning of spring, their appetite wakes up and does not subside until mid-summer.
Behind the blue trepang.
Far East story.
Story Venedikta March.
The spring trepang fishing has begun. Trepang-headed ships gathered at the base, near the Russian Island.
These were large sailing kungas with Asian oars - “yules”, which are not rowed, but rotated measuredly, like a fish with a tail.
Two seasons a year, trepanheads go spearfishing: in spring and autumn. Spring fishing begins in mid-April and lasts for two months. Autumn fishing for trepangolov opens in September and often ends in December. Only severe cold and storms disperse the hunters who got excited.
The leader of the kungas - the main catcher-diver - is not afraid of the cold: the colder it is, the easier it is to catch. A capricious, sensitive sea worm does not tolerate heat, its element is coolness. And when the water along the coast heats up to 14 degrees, the trepang slowly moves inland, pulling up the soft body on the abdominal tubercles - legs. It is difficult for a diver to follow him to great depths.
With the onset of cold weather, the trepang returns closer to the coast, and the catcher easily collects inactive, fat worms at a depth of 25–30 meters. Even in December the diver is not afraid of the cold. He wanders for hours under the icy water in search of trepangs. He wears warm woolen clothes under a diving impenetrable outfit. It's cold over the water, on the open kungas, when the uninterrupted chilling north blows from the mountain shores all day long. The team is chilling, waiting for the leader at the catcher's posts for hours.
At the end of April, the kungas were in full gear: flexible rubber hoses snaked on the decks, through which air was supplied to the diver's helmet; pyramids of trepang tubs rose on the tank; in the center of each kungas, an intricate air pressure pump with protruding side handles stood out clearly.
Every day, as soon as dawn broke in the east, the kungas, like birds of prey, scattered on sails in different directions along the trepang "nests".
Since 1923, in order to preserve the precious worm from predatory extermination, the Soviet authorities introduced a “three-field” in Peter the Great Bay. Catchers must harvest the "harvest" of the sea worm on the underwater "field" in turn, changing one of the three sites. While dozens of divers go down for prey on one, middle "field", the other two "rest".
The first "field" stretches from the Povorotny Peninsula to Cape Manchuria. The second one (on which fishing was allowed this year) extends from Cape Manchzhur to Cape Stenin. On this field - a number of islands, along with the old sea fortress of Vladivostok - "Russian Island". The third vast "field" captures the entire Soviet coast from Cape Stenina to the Tumen-Ula River, approaching the border of foreign possessions.
Trepang, which only from the age of three begins to acquire offspring, freely breeds in inviolable underwater "fields".
On all fishing vessels, the teams consisted of yellow-faced people - Chinese and Koreans, who came to open legal fishing on small shampoos, from which they hunted with a predatory spear and forbidden dredge.
The short white sweatshirts of the Koreans and the blue long robes of the Chinese flickered on the shore - at the base, near the boardwalks sprinkled with black sea cucumbers, and near the boiling cauldrons with sea worms.
Only on the beautiful light kungas No. 13, the main role of the leader-diver went to the old Russian trepangolov Fyodor Vydrin.
The diver himself picked up the team on the kungas. As a signalman to communicate with the ship during underwater work, he invited a young but experienced sailor, a red-haired guy Semyon Yershov, known in all Far Eastern port taverns under the nickname "Salmon-Ruff".
The remaining six members of the team - to work on etching the hose, on pumping air at the pump, on the “yul” (rowing) - were selected by Vydrin from the old Korean trepangols, with whom the Russian trepangol had been predatory along the coast for many years.
Kungas number 13 was noticeably different from the rest of the kungas, similar to each other. On the prow of the Vydrinsky ship, two fish eyes, skillfully carved in wood, stared from the sides. Fish eyes revealed the Chinese origin of the ship. According to the belief of the Chinese sailors, a ship without eyes can easily run into a pitfall, run aground or even get lost in the open spaces of the sea ... Whatever the sailors can think of!
Kungas moved easily and quickly on an Asian high quadrangular sail. The sail, patched up and down, was mottled with red letters and blue triangles; it was sewn from old flour bags.
Every morning, at a little light, Kungas No. 13 left the base, tacked along the bay, hiding from other Kungas, and hid somewhere out of sight.
The Korean strongman Tsoi leaned forward and backward with his whole body, on the wide stern oar "hull" and, it seemed, from his movement, the kungas rolled from side to side, like a fattened giant duck.
This spring season, the Vydrinsk team hunted in a small but deep bay, under the reliable cover of a high island. The rocks of the island, covered with a thick layer of bird guano, seemed to be covered with snow from a distance.
Big-headed seals invariably swam behind the kungas - voluntary guides, whose muzzles seemed serious and expressive, thanks to their whiskers sticking out of the water. When the kungas approached, clouds of black dives broke off the water and, surf the waves, spread to new places. On the island, from rock to rock and over the water, thousands of loons, cormorants, and gulls rushed with cries.
Vydrin was afraid of this piercing bird cry.
No matter how loud they fall asleep, the diver grumbled.
Frightened birds could give the trepangols of other kungas a secret prey trepang “nest”.
Each team knows their favorite rich “places”, and the catchers do their best to hide them from each other. At the base, you can never know where one or another kungas is at the moment: this is a trade secret.
It's been a week since they've been hunting in the closed bay of Kungas No. 13, and every day the team returned with a rich catch.
The sea has been calm for several days. It's cold, it's still fresh, and Vydrin is pleased; he does not need to climb into great depths: at 15–20 meters under water, he easily and quickly fills his shoulder bag with well-fed trepangs.
And the team is happy with their leader. The Koreans do not believe the Russian trepangolov divers: the Russians cannot rush along the seabed as quickly as the Koreans. The yellow-faced Korean catcher is ready to run like crazy under water in search of prey and he is not hindered by pood boots, upholstered in half-inch iron. But Vydrin is appreciated. The team is looking forward to it. That is why for every ten rubles earned by the whole team, the leader receives three rubles, and the rest take one ruble each.
Vydrin's eyes were like deep stagnant water: blue, intent, as if glazed, they were constantly fixed on the same point when Vydrin was resting on the kungas. But as soon as the diver sank into the sea, his motionless eyes instantly lit up and groped along the bottom with a predatory brilliance.
Gloomy, clumsy on land, the diver came to life in his underwater silent loneliness. At the bottom of the sea, he felt at home. Here Vydrin thought over his actions, muttered his innermost hopes into his helmet, shared his unpretentious thoughts with himself.
Trepang is a marine invertebrate animal belonging to the type of echinoderms. Sea cucumbers, holothurians or sea capsules are called mollusks, whose body tends to shrink strongly at the slightest touch, becoming like a cucumber or an old egg capsule.
To date, there are 1150 species that differ in their structure, shape of tentacles, color and appearance. The closest relatives are starfish and hedgehogs. In Russia you can meet about a hundred species of these animals, the most popular of which are cukumaria (Japanese sea cucumber) and Far Eastern trepang: healthy and tasty dishes are prepared from them. The sea cucumber reaches a size of up to half a meter, and its largest weight known to date is 1500 grams!
Trepang: description
Most often, these worm-like animals are found in the waters of the Japan and Yellow Seas, where they live at a fairly large depth (about 100 m or more). In appearance, the mollusk resembles a cucumber (hence the name): it has elongated oval body, thick skin, on which long growths are visible, similar to thorns. Trepang has a number of healing properties and has long been eaten.
The appearance of the holothurian
Holothuria is a unique inhabitant of the underwater world, similar at the same time to a huge worm and a large caterpillar. The soft body of a mollusk can be either absolutely smooth or rough (depending on the variety) and covered with short or long outgrowths. Color - red, gray, green, brown or black.
Sea cucumbers also differ in size. Animals can be either very tiny (from 0.5 cm) or incredibly huge (up to five meters!), which is what attracts the interest of sea hunters.
The mouth of the holothurian is practically devoid of any devices for crushing and chewing food. It is located either at the front end of the body, or slightly shifted to the belly. The few forms of this marine inhabitant that have the ability to attach to rocks or burrow into silt are vaulted, flask-shaped or spherical in shape. This is explained by the fact that the anus and mouth of the trepang are slightly shifted to the back.
All sea cucumbers have characteristic tentacles located around the mouth. These processes are modified ambulacral pedicles. In various representatives of the trepang orders, the structure of the tentacles is not the same, and their number ranges from 8 to 30 pieces. The tentacles are short, thyroid-shaped, intended mainly for collecting nutrient material from the ground surface, tree-branched, covering a fairly large body of water when catching prey.
But, despite the fact that the holothurian has such an unusual shape, it is almost always possible to distinguish between the ventral and dorsal sides, but in its structure the belly of the sea cucumber does not morphologically correspond to that of other animals. Since these worm-like animals always crawl on their side, the names "dorsal" and "ventral" do not quite correspond to generally accepted concepts.
Most forms of sea pods does not have a clear separation of boundaries between head and body, however, in some species, some separation of the body from the head end can still be seen. Trepangs are very slow and move from place to place slowly stretching and contracting. However, their usual state is a quiet pastime lying on their side, which greatly facilitates their capture.
Composition and properties
Sea cucumbers can be safely called a dietary product, since they have a very low calorie content (only 33 kcal per 100 g). Useful properties of mollusks are determined by their composition. in sea cucumbers contains the following substances:
Holothuria is a unique natural substance, the use of which allows you to achieve a quick recovery after surgery or illness. Oriental medicine uses sterile sea cucumber meat to normalize metabolic processes, lowering blood pressure, stimulating cardiac activity, accelerating tissue regeneration, and even getting rid of bradycardia and tachycardia.
Thus, sea cucumbers have a beneficial effect on human health, and if you include them in your daily diet, you can avoid many diseases. Holothuria also has a healing effect on the joints, which is why it is widely used to treat arthritis. The elements that make up trepang meat will help reduce joint stiffness, as well as relieve pain.
Not only fresh sea cucumber meat has useful properties, but also extract from trepang. According to Chinese doctors, the extract of this mollusk, obtained according to a unique recipe, prolongs life, improves the functioning of the nervous and cardiovascular systems, and also helps to saturate the body with a complex of necessary elements and strengthen immunity. The use of extracts is especially recommended for people suffering from chronic diseases and pensioners.
Thus, trepang meat is a unique raw material for the production of medicines and medicinal extracts.
In addition, sea cucumber has found wide application in cooking. It is consumed canned, stewed or fried, as well as delicious salads.
However, there are also contraindications to the use of drugs based on trepang, as well as its meat:
- Hyperthyroidism. The use of sea cucumber can cause an exacerbation of the disease;
- hypertension. The product contributes to a significant decrease in blood pressure;
- pregnancy and lactation;
- age up to 15 years;
- individual intolerance.
How to cook?
Preparing a sea cucumber for eating is not difficult at all. However, you must first prepare the product. To start dried shellfish should be thoroughly washed until the complete disappearance of the black powder. Then put it in a container of water for a while to soak. Water should be changed periodically. After the above steps, boil the sea cucumber in clean water until tender (at least three hours).
There are a huge number of dishes based on trepang. It can be a hodgepodge, soup, pilaf, salad, as well as all kinds of snacks. Sea cucumber can also be used as a filler for cutlets. Dishes containing this mollusk can be served with various sauces (especially spicy ones).
Trepang with honey gained particular popularity among gourmets not only for its unique taste, but also for its very useful properties.
Too dry mollusks should be soaked for several days, until the product ceases to exude the smell of iodine, and the water after washing it becomes completely transparent.
Sea cucumber storage
Store the dried product in a cool and dry place, away from sunlight. Already cooked or fresh sea cucumber, if necessary, can be frozen. However, you should not store trepang in the freezer for too long (more than two months), otherwise it will lose its beneficial properties.
The Japanese use sea cucumbers in their raw form. For this remove the entrails of the animal, cut it into small pieces seasoned with vinegar or soy sauce. Also, the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands and Japan use the gonads and intestines of the sea cucumber for cooking. These products are valued more expensively, the musculoskeletal bag of trepang.
In the world, canned sea cucumbers are in great demand, thanks to which some modern factories and firms in European countries have put the production of canned products from holothurian meat on stream. Now not only hunting for trepang is widely practiced, but also artificial breeding, including here, in Russia (Far East).
So, this seemingly unsightly and to some extent even nasty marine animal can not only save you from many ailments, but also provide you with a healthy and satisfying dinner.
Sea cucumber trepang
Other names: sea cucumber, sea cucumber.
Area: Sea of Japan, East China and Yellow Seas, Pacific coast of Japan, near the southern coast of Sakhalin and Kunashir.
Description: Far Eastern trepang is an invertebrate animal of the echinoderm type. The skeleton is greatly reduced. The body of the trepang is worm-shaped; at one end is the mouth, at the other - the anus. The mouth is surrounded by a corolla of 18-20 tentacles that serve to capture food, and leads to a long tubular intestine. The skin of the trepang is dense, elastic, contains numerous calcareous formations called spicules. All internal organs are enclosed in a thick leathery bag. The dorsal side bears soft conical outgrowths - dorsal papillae, collected in 4 rows.
Color: the color of the dorsal side varies from yellowish and dark greenish to brown or almost black. The dorsal papillae of the trepang are whitish or brown. The tentacles are reddish and dark green to almost black. The ventral side is lighter than the dorsal side, often greenish or brown. Occasionally come across blue trepangs.
The size: up to 43 cm long, up to 9 cm wide.
The weight: up to 1.5 kg.
Lifespan: 8-10 years old.
Habitat: The Far Eastern trepang lives in the coastal waters of the seas (at depths of 2-50 m, usually up to 20 m). Avoids mobile sands and semi-liquid silts. Prefers bays protected from storms with silt-sand shoals and stony placers. It occurs in thickets of sea grasses and algae, mussel settlements.
Enemies: large starfish (Amur and Easteria), man.
Food/food: trepang feeds on dead plankton cells, pieces of algae stalks with microorganisms that have settled on them. It feeds most actively at night and in the afternoon. During the year, food activity changes. The best appetite is in spring, while in summer and early autumn trepangs feed less.
Behavior: very sensitive to a decrease in water salinity. The trepang is an exclusively marine, benthic, sedentary and crawling animal. Cut into three parts and thrown into the water, the trepang replenishes the missing parts of its body. Each piece turns into a whole animal. The trepang moves like a caterpillar - first it pulls up its hind legs and firmly sticks them to the ground, then it tears off the legs of the middle, then the front part of the body from the bottom and throws them forward. For one "step" trepang advances to the distance of the little finger. Able to withstand large fluctuations in temperature, from negative to 28 "C. Resistant to a lack of oxygen in water. Loves water, the salinity of which is close to normal oceanic (35 g of salts / l). Without noticeable consequences, it tolerates a decrease in salinity to 20 g / l. If trepang put fresh water, he throws his insides out and dies.Off the coast of Japan, there were cases when trepang fell into hibernation.
Social structure: wanders along the bottom alone, but lives in large herds.
Reproduction: trepang far east develops with metamorphosis: floating larvae hatch from eggs. One female lays up to 77 million eggs. After spawning, adult trepangs, exhausted and thin, climb into shelters and lie down until October.
Season/breeding period: spawns at a water temperature of 21 "C (from mid-July to late August).
Puberty: 4-5 years.
courtship ritual: male and female stand almost vertically opposite each other, attaching with the posterior end of the body to stones or underwater objects. By touching each other with near-oral tentacles, spawners synchronize the simultaneous release of reproductive products (caviar and sperm) through the genital openings located at the front end of the body near the mouth.
Offspring: larval age stages: dipleurula, auricularia, doliolaria, pentactula. The larvae swim in the water, constantly changing. To turn into a fry, the larvae of the trepang must attach itself to the ahnfeltia algae. There the fry live until they grow up.
Benefit / harm to humans: it is eaten boiled, canned and dried. Dried trepang is eaten in China. In Chinese, trepang is called "hei-son" - "sea root".
Population/conservation status: in late summer - early autumn, trepang fishing is prohibited.
Literature:
1. Great Soviet encyclopedia
2. V. Fedorov. Magazine "Young naturalist"
3. Laboratory of Computer Technologies of the Far East Geological Institute of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (http://www.fegi.ru/)
Compiler
: , copyright holder "Zooclub"
It is forbidden to reproduce the article in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder(s).
Trepang (Far Eastern) is an invertebrate animal of the echinoderm type. The skeleton is greatly reduced. The body of the trepang is elongated in cross section, almost trapezoidal, somewhat flattened, especially in the lower part, worm-like; at one end is the mouth, at the other - the anus. The mouth is surrounded by a corolla of 18-20 tentacles that serve to capture food, and leads to a long tubular intestine. The skin of the trepang is dense, elastic, contains numerous calcareous formations called spicules. All internal organs are enclosed in a thick leathery bag. The dorsal side bears soft conical outgrowths - dorsal papillae, collected in 4 rows.
In length it can reach 45 cm, and in width up to 10 cm, weighing up to 1.5 kg.
Sexual maturity occurs in the 2nd year of life, life expectancy is up to 10-11 years.
It lives in the northern part of the Yellow and East China Seas, most of the coast of the Sea of Japan, in the eastern coast of Japan and the southernmost part of the Sea of Okhotsk in the coastal zone of the Kuril Islands and south of central Sakhalin. It occurs at depths from the water's edge to 150 m.
Useful properties of trepang
Trepang meat contains proteins, fats, vitamin B12, thiamine, riboflavin, mineral elements, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, iodine, iron, copper, manganese. Trepang fat is rich in unsaturated fatty acids, phosphatides.
In Eastern medicine, trepang has long been used as an effective remedy against many serious ailments and, due to its therapeutic effect, was aimed on a par with ginseng. The healing properties of trepang are reflected in its Chinese name "Heishen" - "sea root" or "sea ginseng". References to the miraculous properties of trepang are found in treatises of the 16th century.
The ancient imperial dynasties of China used trepang infusion as a rejuvenating elixir that prolongs life. Studies have confirmed that trepang tissues are ideally saturated with microelements and biologically active substances, which explains the rejuvenating effect. According to the composition of mineral substances, no known organism can compare with trepang.
Trepang infusion on honey is a natural substance. An extract in a liquid state, which allows you to bring the healing components of sea ginseng to all human organs and systems.
Dried sea cucumbers are sold, coated with coal dust to protect them from spoilage. Such trepangs are kept in cold water for 24-30 hours, changing the water 2-3 times; while they increase in volume several times. Before cooking, cut the abdomen and clean out the remnants of the entrails. Cook for 2-3 hours until the meat is tender. Then it is used for cooking. Trepangs are put in cabbage soup, pickles, saltworts, salads, baked with vegetables, stewed with onions.
One of the first scientific descriptions of the healing properties of trepang appeared in the 16th century. in the famous book Wu Tza Tzu. The emperors of many eastern countries believed that eating trepang dishes could increase their time on the throne. Modern scientists and researchers believe that the healing properties of trepang are due to the biologically active substances contained in it. It is these substances that have a healing and rejuvenating effect on the human body.
The use of trepang in food contributes to the rapid renewal of cells and tissues of the body. Cooking trepang is very simple. It must be boiled alternately in fresh and salted water for ten minutes each, and then peeled and stewed with onions or tomato paste. The quenching time depends on what consistency you want to get trepang: the longer you stew it, the softer it becomes.
Dangerous properties of trepang
Trepang extract is not advised to use in case of individual intolerance, as well as at the age of 15 years, during pregnancy and lactation.
Trepang should not be abused with hypotension, as this product significantly reduces pressure.
Also, doctors do not advise using trepang with hyperfunction of the thyroid gland, since its excess can cause an exacerbation of this disease.
An entertaining video showing the process of growing trepangs, the number of which has decreased significantly in recent years, in Primorsky Krai.
