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Pyrosomes are tunicates in the phylum Chordata, which also contains vertebrates. Their gigantic blooms play important ecological and biogeochemical roles in oceans.  Pyrosoma , meaning “fire-body”, derives from their brilliant bioluminescence. The biochemistry of this light production is unknown, but has been hypothesized to be bacterial in origin. We found that mixing coelenterazine—a eukaryote-specific luciferin—with  Pyrosoma atlanticum  homogenate produced light. To identify the bioluminescent machinery, we sequenced  P. atlanticum  transcriptomes and found a sequence match to a cnidarian luciferase (RLuc). We expressed this novel luciferase (PyroLuc) and, combined with coelenterazine, it produced light. A similar gene was recently predicted from a bioluminescent brittle star, indicating that RLuc-like luciferases may have evolved convergently from homologous dehalogenases across phyla (Cnidaria, Echinodermata, and Chordata). This report indicates that a widespread gene may be able to functionally converge, resulting in bioluminescence across animal phyla, and describes and characterizes the first putative chordate luciferase.

A putative chordate luciferase from a cosmopolitan tunicate indicates convergent bioluminescence evolution across phyla