Ciona intestinalis
species of ascidian
Ciona intestinalis (sometimes known by the common name of vase tunicate) is an ascidian (sea squirt), a tunicate with very soft tunic. Its Latin name literally means "pillar of intestines", referring to the fact that its body is a soft, translucent column-like structure, resembling a mass of intestines sprouting from a rock. It is a globally distributed cosmopolitan species: this species has been introduced to various parts of the world and is considered as an invasive species.
Since Linnaeus described the species, Ciona intestinalis has been used as a model species of an invertebrate chordate in developmental biology and genomics.
Taxonomy
Although Linnaeus first categorised Ciona intestinalis as a kind of mollusk, Alexander Kovalevsky found a tadpole-like larval stage during development that shows similarity to vertebrates. Recent molecular phylogenetic studies as well as phylogenomic studies support that sea squirts are the closest invertebrate relatives of vertebrates.
Studies conducted between 2005 and 2010 have shown that this species may in fact be a species complex, with at least two, possibly four, sister species that should be split out from C. intestinalis. One of these cryptic species were proven to be an already described species; Ciona robusta.
Description
Ciona intestinalis is a solitary tunicate with a cylindrical, soft, gelatinous body, up to 20 centimetres (8 in) long. The body colour and colour at the distal end of siphons are major external characters distinguishing sister species within the species complex.
“Ciona intestinalis” enters the record as species of ascidian. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ciona, intestinalis and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Ciona intestinalis” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ciona, intestinalis and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2567701. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2005 and 2010.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ciona intestinalis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.