This slug doesn't lose it's head too often. But when it does, it just regenerates its entire body right back again. The remarkable recovery is practically unheard of in complex animals like sea slugs. ScienceMagArchives
decapitated themselves, a behavior known as autotomy. The neck wound usually closed within 1 day, and the heads, especially in younger specimens, began to feed on algae within hours ., three of 82 autotomized, and two of the three eventually grew new bodies. All of these animals were infected with small crustaceans known as copepods.
Another possibility is that the slugs autotomized to escape predators. But when the researchers tried to mimic an enemy's attack by pinching and cutting the creatures, none cast off their bodies. And the process itself takes several hours, which the scientists say would make it ineffective as means of escape.
How the slugs survive without a heart and other vital organs for nearly 1 month remains a mystery. Mitoh and her colleagues suspect it may be tied to their ability to survive using the photosynthetic algae in their diet while other energy sources are unavailable. The find is"another example of how biology can come up with clever solutions to challenges that threaten survival," says James Godwin, who studies animal regeneration at the Jackson Laboratory. Although he cautions that regeneration of this magnitude may never be possible in vertebrates, like humans, Godwin says the slugs could provide a valuable testing ground for understanding the genetics behind remaking whole body segments.
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