Thaliaceans
Thaliacea
Thaliacea is a class of marine chordates within the subphylum Tunicata, comprising the salps, pyrosomes and doliolids. Unlike their benthic relatives the ascidians, from which they are believed to have emerged, thaliaceans are free-floating (pelagic) for their entire lifespan. The group includes species with complex life cycles, with both solitary and colonial forms. Because of their pelagic and gelatinous nature they are extremely rare in the fossil record, with the first unambiguous thaliacean fossil only being reported in 2026 from the mid-Cambrian Huayuan biota.
3 branches of this class, most-observed first · about 78 known species
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Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
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Every page naming Thaliacea in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 51104.