Lancelets (Cephalochordata)

Lancelets (Cephalochordata) is a Browse By group of the Nature Atlas that gathers the lancelets, small translucent fish-shaped marine animals of the subphylum Cephalochordata that burrow in soft seafloor sediment with only the front end exposed and filter plankton from the water. An entry belongs here when its own cited article describes a lancelet or the cephalochordates as a whole. It excludes the tunicates, such as the sea squirts and pyrosomes, which have a group of their own, and it excludes the true vertebrates, which have a backbone that lancelets lack. The group lets a reader compare the lancelets with the tunicates, the two living lineages of chordates without a backbone.