Attached
Sea cucumbers (Holothurians) are consumed in some Southeast Asian countries III
processedand many other forms. In Sri Lanka only the body wall of sea cucumber is
processedwhich is called Beche-de-mer and mainly export without consuming locally.
The metal concentration of sea cucumbers in Sri Lanka has not been studied
sufficiently.In this study metal concentration of some selected sea cucumber species
was analysed. Fresh samples were collected from North-western sea of Kalpitiya and
DutchBay area during October- November 2008 and October- November 2009 and they
wereeviscerated immediately after harvesting. Metals like Copper (Cu), Iron (Fe), Zinc
(Zn), Lead (Pb), Cadmium (Cd), Cobalt (Co), Chromium (Cr) and Mercury (Hg) in
speciesHolothuria edulis (Keels attaya), H. atra (Nari attaya), Thelenota anax (Poona
attaya),H. scabra (Jafna attaya), H. spinifera (Disco attaya), Bohadschia sp. (Sudu nool
attaya),Bohadschia similis (Line nool attaya), B. marmorata (Dumburu nool attaya) and
Stichopus chloronotus (Dambalaya) were analysed. Results were statistically analysed
by MINITAB 14, a one- way Analysis of Variance (AN OVA) was performed, followed
by Tukey's test for comparisons of significant difference. When consider a single metal
all the mean concentrations among ten species were significantly different (p<0.05) and
the same result was obtained for all analysed eight metals. From results obtained iron
showedthe highest accumulation (56.7 ± 14.9 mglkg dry weight) and mercury showed
the lowest accumulation (24.6 ± 16.8 ug/kg dry weight).
