Salp
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Salps are a primitive, barrel-shaped, free-floating tunicates that move by pumping water through their gelatinous bodies by means of contraction. They are of the class Thaliacea with the other tunicates. They are related to doliolida and pyrosoma. Salps are most common in equatorial seas, where they float randomly alone or in long, stringy colonies.
Salps are subject to population booms. During these booms beaches can become slimy with mats of salp bodies, and other planktonic species can experience fluctuations in their numbers due to competition with the salps.
Primitive nervous systems
Scientists speculate that the tiny groups of nerves in salps are one of the first instances of a primitive nervous system, which eventually evolved into cognitive central nervous systems. Salps have shown us how the brain has evolved over millions of years.
Studies on salp brains have been undertaken by Thurston Lacalli and Linda Z. Holland and published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.