| Tunicates have a nickname that is sea squirts because they are able to squirt water out of their atrial siphon. There are two types of tunicates. Solitary tunicates live by themselves and colonial tunicates live in groups. Their size ranges from one centimeter to over 15 centimeters. Tunicates are filter feeders, so they filter out small particles of plankton, algae, etc. in the water. It is known that tunicates can filter up to 100 liters of water in a single day. They start off as larvae without siphons, then they change into a shorter thing with two siphons, which is a tunicate. Most tunicates are found under rocks in the intertidal. Some are eaten by fish and mollusks. Tunicates belong to the same phylum as humans, Chordata. Out of all of the sites we’ve been to, the most common tunicates we found were Didemnum sp. and Hermania momus. Bryozoans are small colonial animals that mostly look like algae. We are usually not aware of them when they are around, but they are very common. They are also filter feeders, but catch particles with their little tentacles. Their size ranges from 1/25 inch to 3 feet. Like tunicates, they are also found under rocks. They are also known as moss animals. We didn’t really look for them at the sites.
Tunicates are animals that filter feed. They live as solitary tunicates or as colonial tunicates. Tunicates are in the phylum Chordata, which is the same as humans. They have two siphons, oral and atrial siphons. The oral siphon is for intake and the atrial siphon is for waste disposal. They can be found in shallow warm water around the world. Tunicates are also small. They are usually about 1 centimeter long. They filter bacteria and particles through the oral siphon and process it in the body, then release waste through the atrial siphon. Tunicates present no dangers except that they can squirt water and are gross to touch. Colonial tunicates are a group of individual organisms that share the same siphons. Colonial tunicates are similar to solitary tunicates, but they are flatter and have more siphons. Tunicates in general can be found in a variety of colors ranging from black to orange or white or even yellow. They are found in rocks and crevices. They are usually attached to the bottom of large rocks that are in about knee-deep water. They don’t survive well in the classroom at all. They need to be in their original environment in order for them to survive. Tunicates have soft, jelly bodies, allowing them to get pierced and killed very easily. Some tunicates that we found here are the Phallusia nigra, or black sea squirt, and the Herdmania momus, or the Herdman’s sea squirt. These were the most common ones that we found.
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