Polycarpa aurata
species of chordates
Polycarpa aurata, also known as the ox heart ascidian, the gold-mouth sea squirt or the ink-spot sea squirt, is a species of tunicate in the family Styelidae.
Description
Polycarpa aurata grows to a height of 5 to 15 cm (2 to 6 in). It has an urn-shaped, hollow body with two siphons, one at the top and the other on the side. The body colour of this tunicate is white with purple and orange patches and purple lines. The inside is yellow or orange, and is visible around the rim of the siphons.
Distribution
This species is found in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean. Its range includes the Philippines, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and northern Australia. Its depth range is 5 to 50 m (16 to 164 ft).
Biology
Tunicates feed by drawing water in through the branchial siphon at the top, filtering out phytoplankton, bacteria and other food particles, before expelling the water through the atrial siphon at the side. Hydroids and algae may grow on the outside of the tunicate and nudibranchs such as Nembrotha lineolata sometimes feed on them.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Polycarpa aurata” is species of chordates. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Polycarpa, aurata and species, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “species of chordates” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
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 May 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1534556. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Polycarpa aurata” 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.