Knowra Tunicate Tunicate A marine chordate in the subphylum Tunicata, typically enclosed in a cellulose-like tunic. Tunicates include sessile adults and free-swimming forms, and their larvae reveal their chordate ancestry.
Chordate : An animal possessing a notochord, dorsal hollow nerve cord, pharyngeal slits, and post-anal tail at some life stage. Tunicates belong to Chordata, although many adults lose several defining features.
Filter feeder : An organism that obtains food by straining suspended particles from water or air. Most tunicates feed by filtering water through their pharyngeal apparatus.
Sea squirt : A sessile tunicate that pumps water through its body and ejects it when disturbed. Sea squirts are familiar solitary tunicates and illustrate the adult filter-feeding form.
Cephalochordate : A small marine chordate, such as a lancelet, that retains its notochord throughout life. Unlike most adult tunicates, cephalochordates retain a notochord and a fishlike body.
Tunic : The protective outer covering of a tunicate, containing cellulose-like tunicin and often embedded cells or organisms. This defining covering gives tunicates their common name and physical protection.
Siphon (biology) : A tubular passage that moves water into or out of an animal's body. Many tunicates draw water in and expel it through separate siphons.
Salp : A free-swimming, barrel-shaped tunicate that filters plankton from seawater. Salps show that tunicates can live as pelagic swimmers rather than fixed adults.
Vertebrate : A chordate animal with a vertebral column or its evolutionary equivalent. Tunicates are the closest living invertebrate relatives of vertebrates in current phylogenetic accounts.
Notochord : A flexible, rod-shaped support structure found in chordates, present at least during development. The larval notochord is a key sign of tunicate chordate ancestry.
Endostyle : A mucus-secreting groove in the pharynx of some chordates that captures food particles. Tunicates use the endostyle's mucus to trap particles carried through the pharynx.
Show all 23