File:EB1911 Tunicata - Phylogeny.jpg

English: Tunicata phylogeny: The diagram shows graphically the probable origin and course of evolution of the various groups of Tunicata, and therefore exhibits their relations to one another much more correctly than any system of linear classification can do. The ancestral Proto-Tunicata are here regarded as an offshoot from the Proto-Chordata—the common ancestors of the Tunicata (Urochorda), Amphioxus (Cephalochorda) and the Vertebrata. The ancestral Tunicata were probably free-swimming forms, not very unlike the existing Apendiculariidae, and are represented in the life-history of nearly all sections of the Tunicata by the tailed larval stage. The Larvacea are the first offshoot from the ancestral forms which gave rise to the two lines of descendants, the Proto-Thaliacea and the Proto-Ascidiacea. The Proto-Thaliacea then split into the ancestors of the existing Cyclomyaria and Hemimyaria. The Proto-Ascidiacea gave up their pelagic mode of life and became fixed. This ancestral process is repeated at the present day when the free-swimming larva of the simple and compound Ascidians becomes attached. The Proto-Ascidiacea, after the change, are probably most nearly represented by the existing genus Clavelina. They have given rise directly or indirectly to the various groups of simple and compound Ascidians and the Pyrosomidae. These groups form two lines, which appear to have diverged close to the position of the family Clavelinidae. The one line leads to the more typical compound Ascidians, and includes the Polyclinidae, Distomidae, Didemnidae, Diplosomidae, Coelocormidae, and finally the Ascidiae Luciae or Salpiformes. The second line gave rise to the simple Ascidians, and to the Botryllidae and Polystyelidae, which are, therefore, not closely allied to the other compound Ascidians. The later Proto-Ascidiacea were probably colonial forms, and gemmation was retained by the Clavelinidae and by the typical compound Ascidians (Distomidae, &c.) derived from them. The power of forming colonies by budding was lost, however, by the primitive simple Ascidians, and must, therefore, have been regained independently by the ancestral forms of the Botryllidae and the Polystyelidae. If this is a correct interpretation of the of evolution of the Tunicata, we arrive at the following important conclusions. (1) The Tunicata, as a whole, form a degenerate branch of the Proto-Chordata; (2) the Ascidiae Luciae (Pyrosoma) are much more closely related to the typical compound Ascidians than to the other pelagic Tunicata, viz. the Larvacea and the Thaliacea; and (3) the Ascidiae Compositae, form a polyphyletic group the sections of which have arisen at several distinct points from the ancestral simple Ascidians.