Today I being a regular feature of the site, Sea Squirt Sundays by featuring my current favorite ascidian, a stolidobranch named Boltenia villosa aka the Hairy or Spiked Sea Squirt.
Today's featured sea squirt is one that takes filter feeding to a new level - an active one. Introducing the bizarre and wonderful Megalodicopia hians, a.k.a. the Megabyte Sea Squirt, a.k.a. the PREDATORY TUNICATE!
Wait, sessile AND predatory? How have our beloved docile filter feeders gone awry?!
This little fellow, found throughout the pacific in the bathyl zone and below, can indeed still facultatively filter feed like a good little sea squirt, but normally behaves somewhat like a venus fly trap, clamping down on whatever prey the currents carry by. The voracious little beast is omnivorous, and has been found with all manner of crustaceans, diatoms, and other deliciousness that might descend into it's mighty gelatinous maw. You can see video of it's feeding here (scroll half-way through) courtesy of the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
I do wonder, though, why this has stayed rare, and more ascidians haven't adopted this mode? And what evolutionary fluke lead to Megalodicopia in the first place?
Today, something small and beautiful, Cnemidocarpa finmarkiensis.
Continue reading "Sea Squirt Sunday: Pretty in Pink - Cnemidocarpa finmarkiensis" »
So, after my entry on wanting to find a recipe for Styela clava, I had an occasion to go to youtube to look for some sea squirt stuff. There are a variety of short videos there, but then I stumbled on this beauty about preparing Sea Squirt Bim Bim Bap.
So, they remove the innards, slice them, combine it with what looks like rice flour, then serve it with rice, a sauce, and seaweed (I think)? I MUST HAVE THIS RECIPE!!! I think the preparation sounds better than straight Mideodok-chim where they merely steam the Styela.
Sadly, this does not look like Styela, but rather Halocynthia roretzi, a commonly farmed tunicate species (seriously, that link it thorough). Oh well. It goes to prove my point, though! Tunicates can be tasty. Now say "Tasty tunicate" ten times fast. Then go to a fish market in Japan.
The native Didemnum albidum (or perhaps carnulentum now that I look at it's excurrent siphon patterning), left, and the invasive Didemnum sp. A, right, duke it out on a boulder along the Bodega Harbor Jetty. I took this photo about three years ago, and it's been two years since I've seen a D. albidum colony larger than the size of the quarter around Bodega Bay.
I found this colony embedded in the Didmnum sp. A I found in Mission Bay. I love the huge zooids and the distinctive white line running between the siphons. Gretchen Lamebrt ID-ed it for me, and I added it to the Stacholab tunicate photo gallery. Beautiful!
I found this big guy nestled in some Thalamoporella california on a dock in San Diego. Some of the S. plicata on the dock were so large that I could fit my fingers inside their siphons.
Also, they were one of the species used in a cool study by Craig Young leading up to the conclusion that tunicates may be poor larval filter feeders in the field.
What can I say, I'm a sucker for this genus.
They're so cute when they're little! This little whelp was spawned by Steph Porter for an inverts class here at BML. If you squint, you can just picture it, all grown up and filtering away, free of that pesky notochord!
I love looking at tunicate settlers right next to each other. There's such a morphological diversity, such as this invasive Didemnum sp. A right above a native Distpalia occidentalis. You know that fierce competition is just around the corner, but at this life stage, they're so small and vulnerable looking.
This comes from a fouling species ID workshop last weekend. I wasn't quite sure what this particular colonial was, so I dissected it, and was rather pleased that a) my colonial ascidian dissection skills have vastly improved and b) You can really see the tripartate body structure here. In the center zooids note the thorax at the top with the pharyngeal basket leading down into the esophageous. The stomach in the abdomen is crystal clear in the center zooid, and the postabdomen trails away beautifully.
This little beastie has been vexing to me for some time. It looks very very similar to Distaplia occidentalis, but the zooids don't seem as ordered, nor as large. The key to ID-ing it lays in the flecks of color you can see running through the peduncle. That's actually the post-abdomen of each zoid that's in the mushroom head at the top. Normally, these guys are in clusters, but this little one was alone, upping the confusion on the Distaplia front. Something to look out for...
OK, only a rare form of cancer, but, it looks like the Mangrove Tunicate Ecteinascidia turbinata contains a toxin that can shrink and even remove tumors from Liposarcoma!
One wonders what other interesting chemicals lurk in other sessile beasties, as this is a fairly common phenomenon.
Thanks to Grrrlscientist for pointing this out. Link to summary in the Lancet.
The following photo is from my labmate, Kyle, from his wonderful detailed study of fouling community development over time. He's found some pretty amazing things about the little buggers by folowing individuals over time. Most notably, THEY'RE NOT TOTALLY SESSILE!
That's right, folks, over one week, this Diplosoma extended out its little colony, then DROPPED THE OLD ZOOIDS! Hence, it's actually crawling (albeit slowly). I don't know about you, but the idea of a slowly creeping tunicate, silently stalking in the night... it's just a little frightening!
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