---
title: Brick Ascidian (Eusynstyela latericius)
scientific_name: Eusynstyela latericius
common_name: Brick Ascidian
taxon: Sea squirts
published: 2026-08-08T18:49:37.782Z
updated: 2026-08-08T19:21:46.939Z
tags: Brick Ascidian, Eusynstyela latericius, Sea squirts, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/tunicates/sea-squirts/brick-ascidian
---

# Brick Ascidian (*Eusynstyela latericius*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea squirts (*Ascidiacea*)
- **Size:** colonies to 10 cm across
- **Depth:** 2-30 m
- **Diet:** Filter feeder
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Shaded rock and dead coral on reef slopes
- **Reproduction:** Brooder, Budding, Simultaneous hermaphrodite

## How to recognise it

- brick-red to orange colony of separate rounded animals joined at the base
- each animal keeps its own pair of siphons
- surface bumpy rather than smooth-sheeted
- colonies up to 10 cm across

A brick-red to orange colony in which each animal keeps its own rounded body and its own pair of siphons, all joined at the base by a shared tunic. The result is a bumpy cluster rather than the smooth sheet of the star ascidians, up to about 10 cm (6 in) across.

That arrangement sits halfway between the solitary and the truly colonial sea squirts, and the group as a whole covers the full range - single animals, loose clusters, and sheets where dozens share one outlet. All of them filter the same way and all are hermaphrodites; what differs is how much of the body is held in common. Colour makes this one findable on a shaded slope, where red reads as dark grey to the eye at depth and only returns under a torch.

## Also known as

- **Russian:** Асцидия кирпичная

## Scientific synonyms

- *Eusynstyela imthurni* (Herdman, 1906)
- *Gynandrocarpa imthurni* Herdman, 1906
- *Gynandrocarpa latericius* Sluiter, 1904
- *Polyandrocarpa latericius* (Sluiter, 1904)
- *Polyandrocarpa latericuis* (Sluiter, 1904)

## Range

Australia, Coral Sea, Indian Ocean, Queensland, South Pacific Ocean, Western Australia

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/tunicates/sea-squirts/brick-ascidian)*
*Updated: August 8, 2026*