Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Self-Decapitating Slugs

 Sea slugs are weird.

Sea slugs are really weird.

Elysia cf. marginata and Elysia atroviridis have the wonderful habit of severing their own heads and then growing a new body. (No, the body doesn't grow a new head).

It appears they do this when they either become infested with parasites or nibbled on a bit too much by a predator. It takes a couple of weeks, and for some of that time they don't even have a heart.

We're still working out how the detached head keeps itself alive.

Oh, and these slugs also photosynthesize by absorbing algal chloroplasts, in an echo of how multicellular life developed in the first place.

(If you want to make photosynthesizing humans for your SF story, here's a mechanism that might actually work with enough genetic engineering).

No comments:

Post a Comment