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sea squirt
noun
- any tunicate, especially a sessile ascidian, so called from its habit of contracting its body and ejecting streams of water when disturbed.
sea squirt
noun
- any minute primitive marine animal of the class Ascidiacea, most of which are sedentary, having a saclike body with openings through which water enters and leaves See also ascidian
sea squirt
- Any of various tunicates of the class Ascidiacea, having a transparent sac-shaped body with two siphons. One of the siphons is used to draw water (carrying oxygen and food particles) into the body, while the other expels it. Sea squirts are free-swimming as larvae but sessile as adults. Like other tunicates, sea squirts are chordates, but they have a notochord only in the larval stage.
Word History and Origins
Origin of sea squirt1
Example Sentences
Collecting DNA traces from water samples, they show some invasive species are thriving, including a sea squirt that is believed to have originated in Japan and which grows like a carpet over the sea floor.
While the effects were not as widespread as those of new PVC pellets, high concentrations were found to affect the development of molluscs, sea urchins, sea stars and sea squirts.
From algae and colorful fish to marine snails and sea squirts, a completely different world reveals itself underwater.
She also saw another rare visitor, ethereal relatives of sea squirts known as salps that live in the open oceans forming long chains of tiny animals.
They found that the ancestors of one group of palaemonid shrimp had all once lived inside ascidians, a group of tubular filter-feeding organisms that includes tunicates and sea squirts.
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