Class 3.

Thaliacea

1. 2. 3.

4. 5.

6. 7.

8.

Free-swimming pelagic forms.

Solitary or colonial.

Test is permanent thin 'and transparent, with circular muscle bands.

Atriopore posterior.

Branchial sac has either two large or many small gill-slits.

Sexes united.

Tail, nerve cord and notochord absent in adults.

Life history exhibits an alternation of generations.

Order 1. Pyrosomida

1.

2.

3. 4. 5.

Free-swimming, pelagic colonial form. Colony closed at one end.

Zooids of the colony are embedded in a common test. Branchial apertures of the zooids on the outer
side and atrial apertures on the inner side.

Muscle bands confined to body ends. Phosphorescent.

Free-swimming larval stage absent. Example: Pyrosoma.

Order 2. Cyclomyaria (= Doliolida)

l. 2.

Free-swimrhing pelagic forms. Body is cask-shaped with branchial and atrial apertures at opposite ends.
Test is moderately well developed, never much thickened.

Muscle-bands are always complete surrounding the body.

Stigmata small, few to many. Hermaphrodite. Life history exhibits an alternation of generation.

Sexual generation is always polymorphic_ Larva possesses notochord and tail. Examples : Doliolum,
Dolchinia, DoIiopsis.

Order 3. Hemimyaria or Desmomyaria

p-a .

DJ

(.-. Salpida)

Free-swimming pelagic forms.

Body is more or less fusiform with the branchial and atrial apertures nearly terminal and opposite.

Test is well developed and transparent. Muscle-bands are always incomplete ventrally. ‘

Pharynx communicate freely with the atrial cavity through a large gill-slit. stolon is long.
Life history exhibits an alternation of generations. Development occurs inside the pouch of the body and
the embryo is nourished by placenta.

Tailed larva absent.

Examples : Salpa, Scyclosalpa.