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What happens to the nerve cord during tunicate metamorphosis?
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tunicate
Blue spot sea squirt (Clavelina moluccensis), a colonial tunicate.
During the metamorphosis of a tunicate larva into its adult form, the dorsal nerve cordāa key chordate feature present in the motile larval stageāundergoes significant regression.123
As the larva settles and attaches to a substrate, the original nervous system and sensory organs degenerate. The nerve cord, along with the notochord and most of the tail, is generally resorbed within one day. Following this degeneration, the adult nervous system is reduced to a single ganglion located between the oral and atrial openings, from which nerves extend to the various organs of the body.412