The surface is covered with low, rounded papillae, feeling rough to the touch, and this distinguishes this species from the otherwise similar Holothuria hilla.

[5] Holothuria impatiens may get its common name from the fact that it readily expels sticky cuvierian tubules (enlargements of the respiratory tree that float freely in the body cavity) when handled,[3] a defensive strategy that distracts potential predators.

Having found a suitable crack, it relaxes its longitudinal muscles and works its way into the crevice, then stiffens its collagen fibres to make itself secure.

It is a deposit feeder, sifting through the sediment with its feeding tentacles and ingesting the dead biological material it finds, such as fragments of seaweed.

Females produce a small number of large eggs; some related species of sea cucumbers additionally reproduce asexually by transverse fission, but H. impatiens has never been observed to do this.