MOLGULIDAE Lacaze Dithiers, 1877

Kott, Patricia, 2009, Taxonomic revision of Ascidiacea (Tunicata) from the upper continental slope off north-western Australia, Journal of Natural History 43 (31 - 32), pp. 1947-1986 : 1981

Family MOLGULIDAE Lacaze Dithiers, 1877

Type genus: Molgula Forbes, 1848 .

The family contains a variety of genera with distinctive morphology at all depths, from the intertidal to deep ocean basins. The type genus is the most speciose, with a less radical morphology than many of the other genera and generally is found in shallower locations than those explored in the present survey. A single specimen of Molgula is the only representative of this family in the present collection.

Characteristic of the family is the relatively thin test, often with hairs on the surface (to which sand adheres) either all over or on some part of the body, branched branchial tentacles, longitudinal muscle bands radiating from each of the siphons overlapping on each side of the body, coiled stigmata forming tall, often subdivided conical infundibula in the branchial folds, complex folds and pouches in the wall of the pyloric region of the gut, a single hermaphrodite gonad on each side of the body with the testis follicles partially or completely surrounding, or in a clump at the proximal end of, the tubular or sac-like ovary and a relatively large kidney vesicle on the right side of the body.