sea squirt

American  

noun

1. any tunicate, especially a sessile ascidian, so called from its habit of contracting its body and ejecting streams of water when disturbed.

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sea squirt British  

noun

1. any minute primitive marine animal of the class Ascidiacea, most of which are sedentary, having a saclike body with openings through which water enters and leaves See also ascidian

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sea squirt Scientific  

1. Any of various tunicates of the class Ascidiacea, having a transparent sac-shaped body with two siphons. One of the siphons is used to draw water (carrying oxygen and food particles) into the body, while the other expels it. Sea squirts are free-swimming as larvae but sessile as adults. Like other tunicates, sea squirts are chordates, but they have a notochord only in the larval stage.

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Etymology

Origin of sea squirt

First recorded in 1840–50

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

sea squirt

Collecting DNA traces from water samples, they show some invasive species are thriving, including a sea squirt that is believed to have originated in Japan and which grows like a carpet over the sea floor.

From BBC ● May 7, 2024

Trabectedin, a promising drug derived from the sea squirt Ecteinascidia turbinata, has shown potential in combating cancers resistant to conventional treatments.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 12, 2024

Krogan is especially keen on one, plitidepsin, which comes from a species of sea squirt found only in the waters off the Spanish island of Ibiza.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 31, 2022

The logic for this argument arises from observations of a little ocean creature called the sea squirt.

From Slate ● Oct. 30, 2014

That is, the sea squirt begins life as a primitively simple vertebrate.

From Composition-Rhetoric by Stratton D. Brooks