. . . . . . "Ciona intestinalis (vase tunicate) is an ascidian (sea squirt), a tunicate with very soft tunic. Its Latin name means, literally, \"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. Since Linnaeus described the species, Ciona intestinalis has been used as a model invertebrate chordate in developmental biology and genomics."@en . . . . . "Vase tunicate"@en .