Pyura chilensis

Pyura chilensis, called piure in Spanish, is a tunicate of the family Pyuridae. It was described in 1782 by Juan Ignacio Molina. Pyura chilensis is a tunicate that somewhat resembles a mass of organs inside a rock. It is often found in dense aggregations in the intertidal and subtidal coast of Chile and Peru. It is a filter feeder that eats by sucking in seawater and filtering out microorganisms. P. chilensis has some basic characteristics common to chordates, such as the notochord and a perforated pharynx. It is born male, becomes hermaphroditic at puberty, and reproduces by tossing clouds of sperm and eggs into the surrounding water. If it is alone, it will procreate by self-fertilization. Its blood is clear and can contain high concentrations of vanadium, which may be ten million times that found in surrounding seawater, although the source and function of this element's concentrations are unknown. The earliest mention of the P. chilensis was in 1782 by Juan Ignacio Molina in his book 'Saggio Sulla Storia Naturale del Chili.' Molina, a Chilean abbot who was shunned from Chile along with the rest of the Jesuit missionaries, wrote this book to describe the life lived by the Chileans in the Chiloe Archipelago. He briefly describes the natives' fondness of fishing and mentions the piure as another form of sustenance for the people. On the Chilean coast, banks of P. chilensis are heavily fished. The animal is also one of the main food sources for other local aquatic species such as the Chilean abalone (Concholepas concholepas), whose proliferation has threatened P. chilensis and severely restricted its growth for more than two decades.