Salps

I've always loved the diversity course I taught.  I was able to get really excited about the strange evolutionary connections between us and other creatures.

One of the most fascinating is the connection between the tunicates and us.  We're clearly vertebrates.  But roll back the evolutionary paths and we converge with a group that retained primitive characteristics.  They look like jellyfish - but are anything but!

Here's a video my friend Lex passed along showing examples of tunicates: