A close up view of the giant larvacean, the blue tad-pole-like swoosh in the center, and its snot palace. MBARI. Every animal has its own idea of the perfect home.

The larvacean essentially lives inside two mesh-like filters: A smaller inner house, containing inlet filters and fluted chambers, ...

In approximately 3-to-4 hours, the larvacean repeats the process all over again. Although O. dioica’s structure fits the bill for a peristaltic pump, it’s not the most common design.

So it’s been a really wonderful experience, then, seeing for the first time what the instrument then reveals when you’re looking at something like a larvacean house. FLORA LICHTMAN: Why can’t you just ...

When a larvacean's mucus nets become clogged, the animal swims free. The abandoned nets then collapse like a deflated balloon and sink rapidly, carrying tiny animals and food particles toward the ...

That’s the first ever 3D reconstruction of the giant larvacean, released just last month by scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in California. You can read about how ...

A giant larvacean produces an elaborate mucus home for itself that bioengineer Kakani Katija of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California on occasion calls a “snot palace.” ...

Since the giant larvacean’s snotty digs are too fragile to study at the surface, researchers with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) used a 12,000-pound, ...

This new 3D reconstruction of a giant larvacean shows the structure of its inner filter. The animation was made in collaboration with the Digital Life Project at the University of Massachusetts.

Because giant larvacean houses are too big to study in the lab, Katija decided to perform similar experiments in the open ocean, using MBARI's remotely operated vehicles.

The larvacean’s fecal pellets sank to the bottom, removing plastics from the water column and out of harm’s way for other sea creatures. That’s the good news.