Looks like a ghost but it is a long cousin!

Tunicates or sea-squirts or ascidians is common names that we use for the members of the class Ascidia (or class Ascidiacea). This class belongs to the phylum Chordata which is the phylum that belongs and “our” class Mammalia.
Cione roulei, Lahille, 1887 is also known as red tunicate. It seemed very strange to me when I first see it at Paros. I don’t think that it is common to find this animal at the eastern Mediterranean. It is strange and I didn’t understand that it is a tunicate at first sight. It has an inner and outer part of the animal. The outer part looks like a cloak or a ghosts sheet. If you touch it the inner red part will move while the outer not. I find them at less than 5 meters depth and this animal prefer living at deeper. After I found the impressive couple of the first photo I continue swimming around to find more of them. I found one without obvious ghost sheet and one without color inside. I think that all this are C.roulei but I cannot be sure because I left them there. In next posts we will learn more about tunicate biology and meet more members of that class.