---
title: Manina's Ascidian (Metandrocarpa manina)
scientific_name: Metandrocarpa manina
common_name: Manina's Ascidian
taxon: Sea squirts
published: 2026-08-08T18:49:37.810Z
updated: 2026-08-08T19:42:02.140Z
tags: Manina's Ascidian, Metandrocarpa manina, Sea squirts, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/tunicates/sea-squirts/maninas-ascidian
---

# Manina's Ascidian (*Metandrocarpa manina*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea squirts (*Ascidiacea*)
- **Size:** colonies to 8 cm across
- **Depth:** 3-30 m
- **Diet:** Filter feeder
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Shaded rock faces and under ledges
- **Reproduction:** Brooder, Budding, Simultaneous hermaphrodite

## How to recognise it

- small rounded animals sitting separately but linked by a basal sheet
- orange to yellow, each animal with two visible siphons
- grows in a loose patch, not a solid crust
- colonies up to 8 cm across

A loose colony of small rounded animals, orange to yellow, sitting slightly apart from one another and connected only by a thin sheet at the base. Each keeps its own two siphons and its own filtering basket, and the patch as a whole reaches about 8 cm (3 in).

Colonial ascidians are usually described as if colony formation were one thing, but this genus shows how partial it can be: the animals bud from a shared base, so they are clones, yet almost nothing else is held in common. Species in this family are separated on internal anatomy rather than on appearance, so a photograph rarely settles a name - which is worth stating on a page like this. What the diver can rely on is the habit: small orange buttons in a loose group, on shaded rock, each visibly breathing on its own.

## Also known as

- **Russian:** Метандрокарпа манина

## Range

Moorea, Tahiti Island

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