Discover the Wonders of the Animal Kingdom: Top 14 Fascinating Facts About Chordates

1. Chordate Superhero League

Holy notochords, Batman! Chordates are the vertebrate superhero league of the animal kingdom - but they also have a few sidekicks: lancelets and tunicates: All members of team Chordata, whether swimmiest of fish or stealthiest of mammals, share a common origin story that includes a notochord during their embryonic stage, pharyngeal slits for water-based superpowers, a dorsal nerve cord for crime-fighting reflexes, and a post-anal tail for mighty locomotion. However, the adult tunicates ditch their notochord, while the vertebrates morph it into a backbone!
Source => nhpbs.org

2. Cathaymyrus Pickup Line

Once upon a prehistoric ocean, in a world of underwater speed dating, the Cathaymyrus had its very own unique pickup line: "Hey, are you a vertebrate? Because you've got my notochord all stiff and flexible": In truth, this little worm-like chordate from 535 million years ago is believed to be an ancestor of all vertebrates, and boasts the first notochord – a supportive rod down its back – predating the fancy spinal columns we see today.
Source => pbs.org

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3. Sea Squirts' Childhood Dreams

Did you know sea squirts have an odd way of throwing in the towel on their childhood dreams? They start with ambitions of being spinal cord superstars, but eventually, they settle for a more humble existence: Tunicates, also known as sea squirts, are invertebrate chordates that have a notochord only during their larval stage, but as they mature, they lose it, squeezing out a life as filter feeders with characteristics like a dorsal nerve cord.
Source => homework.study.com

4. Lancelets: Smart Invertebrates

Whoever said "get your head in the game" must have had lancelets in mind: These quirky invertebrates are the only living spineless creatures with an actual head, complete with sensory organs and a brain-like structure called the cerebral vesicle, giving them a clear edge over their invertebrate chordate pals!
Source => courses.lumenlearning.com

5. Hagfish's Slime Defense

You’ve heard of the Godfather making you an offer you can't refuse, but have you met the hagfish with a defense you can't defuse? Slime on over and enter the world of spectacularly spooky secretions: This jawless fish, belonging to the subphylum Craniata, oozes vast amounts of slime to choke its predators into submission, making a daring escape while its attacker writhes in gooey despair. As a primitive chordate, the hagfish boasts a cranium but no backbone, letting it slither away like the slippery scoundrel it is.
Source => opened.cuny.edu

6. Mermaid-style Seafood Buffet

Channeling their inner mermaid, some chordates have evolved a rather nifty way to whip up a seafood buffet: these creatures use pharyngeal slits to filter food particles out of the water that enters their mouth, which later develop into gill arches in fish and jaw and inner ear bones in mammals and birds. Affirmative, even we humans had our embryonic brush with aquatic food filtering fame before these slits decided to be vestigial cool kids in adults!
Source => bio.libretexts.org

7. Jaw-dropping Evolution

Whoever thought gills would be jaw-dropping: The evolution of jaws in chordates, originating from the gill bars of their ancestors, led to the success and diversification of vertebrates, allowing for active predation, selective feeding, and eventually nifty brain and sense organ developments – all thanks to a crucial interplay among neural crest cells, Hox genes, edn1, dlx, hand2, Jag1b-Notch2 signaling, and Nr2f factors. Jaw-some, isn't it?
Source => ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

8. Tunicates: Jet-setters to Rock-huggers

Ever caught yourself saying "I used to be cool, back in the day"? Well, tunicates can empathize as they reminisce about their adventurous youth resembling aquatic jet-setters, minus the travel blog: As invertebrate chordates, tunicates own a larval stage eerily similar to tadpoles or lancelets, with the notochord supporting their swanky tails, thus earning them the Urochordata title. Alas, storytime darkens as they mature into adults, bidding farewell to the notochord's glamorous transformation into a vertebral column and ditching several chordate features like their once-prided tails and nerve chords.
Source => manoa.hawaii.edu

9. Chordates' Built-in Support

Calling all backseat drivers, literal edition: Did you know that all chordates come equipped with a built-in spine-like support? Behold the notochord: a flexible, rod-shaped structure that runs between the digestive tube and the nerve cord, providing skeletal support for these creatures. In vertebrates, it's merely a temporary feature that's replaced by the spine, but for some species, it's a lifelong companion keeping them in line.
Source => courses.lumenlearning.com

10. Tunicate High School Reunion

Picture this: a high school reunion where the once-geeky, fast-swimming, tadpole-like teenager now shows up as a permanently attached, rock-hugging, filter-feeding party animal : This is the not-so-fictional transformation story of tunicates, the invertebrate chordates that start life resembling a tadpole with a notochord and tail, but as they mature, they ditch these features and become stationary adults stuck to their underwater homes.
Source => manoa.hawaii.edu

11. Tunicates: Filter Masters

You might think tunicates are just lazy loiterers of the sea, but they're actually hardcore water filterers in disguise: These sneaky invertebrate chordates can astoundingly clean over 100 liters of water each day, using their pharyngeal slits to gorge on plankton and other tiny particles while scoffing at the very idea of inefficiency.
Source => manoa.hawaii.edu

12. Lifetime Notochord Holders

Ready for a spine-tingling secret from the world of chordates? Brace yourself: some invertebrate species like amphioxus and appendicularian tunicates hold onto their notochord for life, bucking the vertebrate trend of trading theirs in for cartilage or bone spines when they grow up.
Source => ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

13. Chordate Tail Chasers

Chasing tails isn't just for dogs, fish are in on the game too: Chordates, like humans and fish, possess a postanal tail that serves various functions such as locomotion, balance, and communication – even fishy "tail-signaling" to send messages to their aquatic buddies. However, the hagfish decided to be a party pooper and skipped on growing a tail altogether.
Source => sunyorange.edu

14. Lancelets: Transformers of the Sea

Like a real-life Transformer stuck in between forms, lancelets are the Michael Bay movie heroes of the invertebrate world, blurring the lines like a blendtec on high: These unique members of the Cephalochordata subphylum (a branch of the Chordata family) actually retain all four key features of chordates - notochord, dorsal hollow nerve cord, pharyngeal slits, and post-anal tail - even in their adult stage, stealthily slinking in tropical and warm temperate seas as suspension feeders, like tiny, aquatic blades in the sand.
Source => courses.lumenlearning.com