Invertebrate Chordates (Tunicata and Cephalochordata)
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of approximately 32 specimens and three plaster models of invertebrate chordates. These date from 1889 to 1994. This collection contains approximately 30 tunicates in spirit and two lancelets in spirit. The majority of these were collected by scuba divers in the 1980s, during marine survey work around Scotland, although there are also several specimens that were collected at the end of the 19th century, such as the lancelets, which were collected from the Mediterranean in the 1890s. The models in the collection show the internal anatomy of tunicates and a lancelet. Further supporting material includes information from some marine survey work conducted in the 1980s. The phylum Chordata contains the vertebrates and two smaller subphyla that are often referred to as the invertebrate chordates. These are known as the Tunicata (also known as the Urochordata) and the Cephalochordata. Tunicates, of which there are around 3,000 species found worldwide, are more commonly called sea squirts or salps, and are mostly colonial and filter feeders. The Cephalochordata, of which there are only 30 species found in temperate and tropical seas, are commonly known as lancelets or amphioxus. They are a small group of filter-feeding marine animals that usually live buried in sand.
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