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Most of the collectors are young boys. Wearing homemade goggles made of circles of glass fitted with pitch into carved sections of bamboo, the trepang collectors scan the shallows for their foot-long quarry.

Although the animals are not dangerous, they have a tendency to eject their Cuvierian tubules— long, sticky white strands—when disturbed. Collectors invariably get this goo, designed to immobilize a predator, all over their hands.

Some 30 species—generally Holothuria—are collected. The inferior, small black ones are sold to the Chinese market, where they fetch up to $2.40 a kilo for the wholesalers in Ujung Pandang. The real prize, however, is H. aculeata, fat and whitish when dried. These are saved for the more lucrative Hong Kong market, where they sell for up to $17/kilo wholesale.

Trepang, a Malay word, is also called bêchede-mer, a pseudo-French word derived from an old English word, derived from the Portuguese bicho do mar, "sea worm." The original Latin, however, is more evocative: "little sea beast."