Page 53 - Caribbean Reef Life Demo

Tunicates are often overlooked on the reef. These simple animals can be mistaken for sponges as they have large openings, called siphons, for expelling water. nlike sponges, they have bands of muscles around their bodies that allow them to close these siphons for protection.
Tunicates are lter feeders, removing microscopic bits of plankton from the seawater. They are covered in a rm but exible tunic of esh, hence their name. Individual animals may share this tunic, as well as a common large excurrent siphon for expelling their ltered seawater.
There are three main types of tunicates: larger tube-shaped animals where both of the siphons are visible, at colonies of encrusting animals with only their excurrent siphons being visible and the free- oating planktonic tunicates that can sometimes drift over a coral reef from the open ocean.
Tube-Shaped Tunicate Encrusting Tunicate Planktonic Tunicate
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