Ascidians
mikethemadbiologist | July 17, 2007Inspired by Quixote's excellent post about ascidians--my firstest study organism EVAH--I've decided to delve into the archives and repost something of my own about ascidians.
I used to study botrylloid ascidians (Botrylloides diegensis to be exact). Ascidians are one of our closest invertebrate relatives. In their larval stage, they look like little tadpoles and even have a notochord (picture taken from here):
Within a few hours, the tadpole settles on a flat surface, and resorbs its tail, and essentially turns itself into a giant pair of vocal chords that are wrapped in mucus. The whole…