SUPHYLUM

UROCHORDATA
Tail Chordates
3 classes: (Ascidiacea, Larvacea, Thaliacea)
CHARACTERISTICS: (Ascidian)

sea squirts
Marines animals
Often brightly colored
Some species SOLITARY, others COLONIAL
Larvae PLANKTONIC, adult SESSILE
All are hermaphrodites
REPRODUCTION Solitary (sexual), Colonial (sexual and asexual)
ASEXUAL REPRODUCTION involved budding
LARVAL STAGE:

ascidian tadpole
Not feeding while on its sojourn of a few days
Free living member of the plankton
ONLY exhibits the 4(5) fundamental features of chordates
PHARYNX bears a SLITS (gills slits),expanded into a
complex straining apparatus (branchial basket)
NOTOCHORD turgid, tubular rod closed at both end
LARVAL STAGE: (cont)
POST-ANAL TAIL present, twisted rotated 90
o
to the body
TUNIC covers the larva, acellular, secreted by the underlying epidermis
TUNIC covered by a this inner and outer cuticular layer
OUTER CUTICULAR LAYER - forms the LARVAL TAIL FINS(cast-off at
metamorphosis)
INNER CUTICULAR LAYER forms the outermost surface of the juvenile (remains
even after metamorphosis)
ADHESIVE PAPILLAE serve to attach the larva to a substrate
CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM forms from the embryonic neural plate that rolls up

3 SUBDIVISIONS OF CNS:
Sensory vesicle
Visceral ganglion
DHNC

Within the Sensory Vesicle:
Ocellus light-sensitive, little eye
Otolith gravity-sensitive

VISCERAL GANGLION nearby and send nerves to various parts of the body
CEREBRAL GANGLION rudimentary and functional only after metamorphosis

NERVE CORD extended into a tail supported by the notochord.

Nerve Cord includes:
Ependymal cells around the neurocoel, forms an epithelial linings
Nerve tracts arise from the visceral ganglion and pass lateral to
the ependymal cells, supply the tail muscles


LARVAL STAGE: (cont)
BLOOD CELLS present - circulating
HEART present rudimentary, reverse the direction of pumping into
adult heart

METAMORPHOSIS:
retrogressive metamorphosis
Juvenile to Adult Stage.
It involves the loss of the notochord, nerve cord, and tail, and a twisting of
the body so that the mouth and the anus both point away from the
attachment.


CHANGES DURING METAMORPHOSIS:
Larva attaches to the substratum with the help of chin warts, head
downward and tail up.
Rapid growth takes place between the chin warts (adhesive papillae) and
mouth and almost no growth on the opposite side of body.
Due to rapid growth on one side, body starts rotating in such a way that
mouth gradually migrates to the upper side.
Meanwhile pharynx enlarges and stigmata increase in numbers.
Intestine becomes functional and atrial opening is formed on the opposite
side of oral aperture.
Both tail and notochord are gradually absorbed in the body during
metamorphosis.
The hollow nerve cord is reduced into a solid nerve ganglion on the dorsal
side.
Sense organs, namely ocellus and statocyst are lost.
ADULT:
TUNIC composed of tunicin
Forms the body wall of the ascidian adult
Attaches the base of the animal to a secure substrate

VISCERA enclosed within the walls formed by the tunic
SUBNEURAL GLAND contains no neurons and has no nervous role
2 siphons:
BRANCHIAL incurrent siphon entrance portal
ATRIAL excurrent siphon exit portal

ORAL TENTACLES tiny, fingerlike sensory tentacles
Encircle the incurrent siphon
Examine the entering water
Exclude the excessively large particles before water enters the
branchial basket
ADULT: (CONT)
STIGMATA - the complex pharyngeal slits - sieve water from branchial
basket atrium
ATRIUM space between basket and tunic
ENDOSTYLE produce mucus, mid-ventral food-groove
HEART located near the pharynx
Tubular
With a single layer of muscle like striated myoepithelial cells forming its
wall
PERICARDIAL CAVITY only remnant of the coelom
BLOOD contains fluid plasma, amoebocytes
AMOEBOCYTES resemblance vertebrate lymphocytes
NERVOUS SYSTEM consist of brain-like cerebral ganglion
CEREBRAL GANGLION located between the siphons, act as a brain of
ascidian
CLASS LARVACEA (APPENDICULARIA)
Adult larvacea derived from the larval stages of ascidians
Ascidian and larvaceans equally ancient
filter feeders
transparent planktonic animals
Pelagic species
has a discrete trunk and tail
Appendicularians reproduce sexually

TAIL SHIFT- process in which the tail moves from a rearward position to a
ventral orientation and twists 90 relative to the trunk.

NEOTENY - also called juvenilization, Evolution by retaining juvenile traits as an
adult
Larvaceans produce a most remarkable feeding apparatus.
Feeding apparatus is outside the animal, not part of its pharynx

3 COMPONENTS OF FEEDING APPARATUS:
SCREENS initial sorting device, exclude large particles
FILTERS - mucus feeding filter, removed the tiny suspended food particles
GELATINOUS MATRIX expanded

HOUSE the gelatinous matrix where the larvaceans lives within.
- holds the feeding screen and filters
- forms the channels through which streams of water carry suspended food particles.

HOUSE AND FEEDING STYLE OF LARVACEANS:
differ among the various species
Unique

TAIL thin and flat, creates a feeding current that draws water into the house
Larvaceans are protandrous
Nerve cord is present
Muscle bands act on a notochord to produce movement

TRUNK holds its major body organ.

3 FAMILY UNDER CLASS LARVACEA:
Kowalevskiidae no heart and Endostyle
Fritillaridae few cells in stomach
Oikoplueridae digestive system includes u-shaped digestive tube
pharynx with a pair of slits
Endostyle that manufactures mucus
Class Thaliacea:
Free-living
Pelagic
Derivatives of an adult ascidian
Few pharyngeal slits are present
Feeding - unresolved but with cilia, mucus and branchial basket
Siphons - lie at the opposite ends of the body