---
title: Rodrigues' Didemnum (Didemnum rodriguesi)
scientific_name: Didemnum rodriguesi
common_name: Rodrigues' Didemnum
taxon: Sea squirts
published: 2026-08-08T18:49:37.795Z
updated: 2026-08-08T21:16:40.082Z
tags: Rodrigues' Didemnum, Didemnum rodriguesi, Sea squirts, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/tunicates/sea-squirts/rodrigues-didemnum
---

# Rodrigues' Didemnum (*Didemnum rodriguesi*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea squirts (*Ascidiacea*)
- **Size:** colonies to 20 cm across
- **Depth:** 1-30 m
- **Diet:** Filter feeder
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Overgrowing dead coral, rock and sponges
- **Reproduction:** Brooder, Budding, Simultaneous hermaphrodite

## How to recognise it

- thin white to cream sheet overgrowing whatever it sits on
- surface finely pitted with many small inlet holes
- larger outlet openings scattered across the sheet
- colonies up to 20 cm across

A thin white to cream sheet spreading over dead coral, rock and even living sponges, its surface finely pitted with the inlet holes of hundreds of individual animals and punctuated by larger shared outlets. Colonies reach about 20 cm (8 in) and follow every contour of what they cover.

The tunic is stiffened with microscopic calcareous spicules, which is why the sheet feels gritty and why almost nothing grazes it. Didemnid ascidians are among the fastest-spreading encrusters on a reef, and some species elsewhere have smothered entire seabeds after being introduced. They also host symbiotic algae in some cases, and are a rich source of compounds now studied as anti-cancer drugs - one class taken from a relative of this genus reached clinical use. All of it comes from an animal that looks like spilled paint.

## Also known as

- **Russian:** Дидемнум Родригеса

## Range

Papua New Guinea, South Pacific Ocean, Southeastern Brazil, Western South Atlantic

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