SUBPHYLUM

UROCHORDATA
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INTRODUCTION
Sea Squirts or Tunicates
SUBPHYLUM UROCHORDATA
 At first glance, you might mistake this
creature for a sponge

 Adult tunicates look like small sacs (about

3 cm tall)

 Are stationary (sessile)

 SUBPHYLUM UROCHORDATA
 Urochordata means "tail-cord"

 Mostly marine, >1600 species

 Some Chordate Hallmarks are missing

 However, tunicates begin life in a larval state,

which have a post-anal tail, a nerve cord, and a
notochord.

 Therefore, these immobile animals with

tadpole-like larvae are considered chordates.
SUBPHYLUM UROCHORDATA

 Urochordates have a notochord that

extends from just behind the Head
to the tail (rather than from head to
tail (Mostly confined to tail)

 Many urochordates are more

commonly referred to as “sea
squirts”

 Contain cancer-fighting chemicals

SUBPHYLUM UROCHORDATA
 The body of an adult tunicate is quite simple
 Being essentially a sack with large gill structures
 Have two siphons through which water enters and exits
 Water is filtered inside the sack-shaped body.
CLASSES OF UROCHORDATES
 Urochordata is divided into three classes:

 1. Ascidiacea 2. Thaliacea 3. Appendicularia

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ASCIDIACEA (ASCIDIAN)

 The most common, diverse and best known

 Often called “sea squirts”

 Sessile animals, attached to rocks or other hard

substrates

 May be solitary, colonial or compound.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

 Adult body is covered by an outer envelope –

tunic
 Tunic – composed of fibers of tunicin
embedded in a mucopolysaccharide matrix
 Tunic encloses a basket-like pharynx, that is
perforated by gill slits
ASCIDIACEA (ASCIDIAN)

 Solitary and colonial forms has its own

tunic

 Compound forms – many individuals share

the same tunic –each individual has its own

incurrent siphon, but the excurrent opening

is common to the group.

ASCIDIACEA (FEEDING)

 Food particles are filtered out in the

pharyngeal slits with mucus from the
endostyle used to trap particles.

 Food with mucus moves to stomach and

digested

 Undigested particles are released through

anus near excurrent siphon.
ASCIDIACEA (CIRCULATION)
 Tunicates have a ventral heart
 Two large vessels, one on either side of the heart
 Vessels connect to a diffuse system of smaller vessels
in the pharyngeal basket (where respiratory exchange
occurs),
 Connects to the digestive organs, gonads, and other
structures

 Odd feature
 found in no other chordate
ASCIDIACEA (CIRCULATION)
 The heart drives the blood first in one direction for a few beats,
 Then pauses,
 Reverses its action, and drives the blood in the opposite direction

 Presence of strikingly high amounts of rare elements in the blood,

such as Vanadium (V) and Niobium (Nb).
 The function of these rare metals in the blood is a mystery.
QUICK ASSIGNMENT – DUE IN A WEEK

 Urochordates possess strikingly high amounts of rare

elements in the blood, such as Vanadium (V) and

Niobium (Nb). What is the significance of these

elements? How are they accumulating in their bodies?

 Research Online – Max 1 page note is required.

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LARVAL ASCIDIAN
 Even though the adult ascidian hardly resembles a
chordate its larva does.

 Larval ascidians are very small and tadpole-like and

possess all five chordate characteristics previously
outlined.
ASCIDIAN LIFECYCLE
 Adults are hermaphrodite – single ovary and testes – external
fertilization

 The larval ascidians role is to disperse and to achieve this it is free

swimming. However, it has only a short larval life (minutes to a
couple of days) and does not feed during this time.

 Instead it searches for a place to settle and then attaches and

metamorphoses into an adult.

 During metamorphosis the notochord disappears, the nerve cord is

reduced to a single nerve ganglion and a couple of nerves.
ACIDEAN LARVA AND
METAMORPHOSIS
CLASS THALIACEA
 Known as thaliaceans or salps, are barrel or lemon shaped
 Transparent, gelatinous bodies are nearly invisible in sunlight
 They occur singly or in colonial chains
 Body is typically surrounded by bands of circular muscle
 With incurrent and excurrent siphons at opposite ends.

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CLASS THALIACEA
 Water pumped through the body by muscular contraction (rather
than by cilia as in ascidians)
 Used for locomotion by a sort of jet propulsion,
 For respiration
 As a source of particulate food that is filtered on mucous surfaces.
 Many are provided with luminous organs

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CLASS APPENDICULARIA / LARVACEA
 Shaped like a bent tadpole
 The name Larvacea refers to their resemblance to
the larval stages of other tunicates.

 They feed by a method unique in the animal world.

 Each builds a delicate house, a transparent hollow
sphere of mucus interlaced with filters and
passages through which water enters
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CLASS APPENDICULARIA / LARVACEA

 Tiny phytoplankton and bacteria trapped on a feeding

filter inside the house
 Drawn into the animal’s mouth through a straw like tube.
 When the filters become clogged with waste, which
happens about every 4 hours,
 The appendicularian abandons its house and builds a
new house, a process that takes only a few minutes.
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CLASS APPENDICULARIA / LARVACEA

 Appendicularians are paedomorphic

 they are sexually mature animals
 that have retained the larval body form of their evolutionary
ancestors

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