Our Bizarre Relatives: A Sea Squirt Family Album

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Star Ascidians Sea Squirts
Each of the pedal-like structures is an individual sea squirt, which has grouped together with others to form a system. Together these systems form colonies. The animals above are star sea squirts.
(Image credit: Jungho Ohn & Annette Hellbach)

A Meat Eater

Carnivorous Sea Squirt

(Image credit: Advanced Imaging and Visualization Laboratory, WHOI/Jess Adkins, Caltech.)

Power of Regeneration

Sea Squirt Regeneration

(Image credit: Ram Reshef et al., PLoS Biology)

The colonial sea squirt Botrylloides leachi can regenerate its entire body from just tiny blood vessel fragments. The entire process, which partially resembles the early stages of embryonic development, takes as little as a week to produce an adult sea squirt.

Wynne Parry
Wynne Parry
Wynne was a reporter at The Stamford Advocate. She has interned at Discover magazine and has freelanced for The New York Times and Scientific American's web site. She has a masters in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Utah.