Interesting Facts
* Tunicates are the only types of animals that
can create cellulose. Cellulose is the sugar storage
configuration used by plants and is also what we also call
fiber. As humans we can not digest cellulose because the links
between glucose molecules alternate directions forming a
different kind of bond that we can not digest.
* The mangrove tunicate has high levels of Vanadium in its blood making it distasteful to potential predators. Concentrations of Vanadium can reach one million times that of the external water in some tunicates. Tunicates can also harbor lithium at levels higher than other organisms.
* E. turbinata has the larges tunicate larva in North America.
* It take over one ton of Mangrove tunicates to produce a single gram of ecteinascidin-743. The chemical formula for ecteinascidin is shown above.
Guess what there's more. Mangrove tunicates have medicinal properties as well.
