{"id":13083,"date":"2023-07-14T09:02:22","date_gmt":"2023-07-14T03:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=13083"},"modified":"2025-04-02T00:12:37","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T18:42:37","slug":"what-are-tunicates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-are-tunicates\/","title":{"rendered":"What are Tunicates?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>Why in news?\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The new fossil, named <strong>Megasiphon thylakos<\/strong>, revealed that ancestral tunicates lived as stationary, filter-feeding adults and likely underwent metamorphosis from a tadpole-like larva.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>About Tunicates:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>These are <strong>commonly called sea squirts<\/strong> which are a group of marine animals.<\/li>\n<li>They spend most of their lives attached to docks, rocks or the undersides of boats.<\/li>\n<li>About 3,000 species of tunicate exist in the world\u2019s oceans, <strong>living mostly in shallow water.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>They are a <strong>species of marine invertebrates<\/strong> with an evolutionary history from atleast 500 million years ago.<\/li>\n<li>Researchers are interested in them as they are the <strong>closest relatives of vertebrates,<\/strong> which includes fish, mammals, and people.<\/li>\n<li>There are <strong>two main tunicate lineages<\/strong> namely;\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Ascidiaceans<\/strong>: They are often called \u201csea squirts and most ascidiaceans begin their lives looking like a tadpole and mobile, then metamorph into a barrel-shaped adult with two siphons. They live their adult life attached to the seafloor.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Appendicularias: <\/strong>They retain the look of a tadpole as they grow to adults and swim freely in the upper waters. These seem extremely far removed from vertebrates.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Features<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Tunicates are truly strange creatures that come <strong>in all shapes and sizes<\/strong> and have a wide variety of lifestyles.<\/li>\n<li>An adult tunicate\u2019s basic shape is <strong>typically barrel-like,<\/strong> with <strong>two siphons<\/strong> projecting from its body.<\/li>\n<li>One of the siphons draws in water with food particles through suction, allowing the animal to feed using an internal basket-like filter device.<\/li>\n<li>The other siphon expels the water.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What are Invertebrates?<\/h3>\n<p>Invertebrates are characterized by their lack of a backbone or vertebral column. Instead, they have other structural features that support and protect their bodies. Invertebrates comprise a vast array of animal groups, including insects, spiders, crustaceans, mollusks etc<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/science-for-all\/article67067802.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Science for All | What are tunicates?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tunicates are commonly called sea squirts which are a group of marine animals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13084,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}