Pyura chilensis, called piure in Spanish and piür or piwü in Mapudungun, is a tunicate of the family Pyuridae. It was described in 1782 by Juan Ignacio Molina.
Pyura chilensis
A specimen of Pyura chilensis being cut open to pull out the siphons from the carapace in the port of Arica, Chile.
Raw piure in Valparaíso
A tunicate is a marine invertebrate animal, a member of the subphylum Tunicata. It is part of the Chordata, a phylum which includes all animals with dorsal nerve cords and notochords. The subphylum was at one time called Urochordata, and the term urochordates is still sometimes used for these animals. They are the only chordates that have lost their myomeric segmentation, with the possible exception of the 'seriation of the gill slits'. However, doliolids still display segmentation of the muscle bands.
Tunicate
Clavelina moluccensis, the bluebell tunicate
Botrylloides violaceus showing oral tentacles at openings of buccal siphons
The star-shaped holes (Catellocaula vallata) in this Upper Ordovician bryozoan may represent a tunicate preserved by bioimmuration in the bryozoan skeleton.