The head and body of the Elysia. marginata a day after the decapitation. The slug s body is over 80 percent of its total weight (Credit: Sayaka Mitoh)
Regeneration, or the ability to regrow body parts, is a fairly widespread phenomenon in the animal kingdom. However, the skill is usually restricted to growing a new tail or a new limb. Now researchers have found two species of sacoglossan sea slugs
Elysia atroviridis and
marginata that deliberately detach their heads from their original bodies and grow brand new bodies!
Biologists Sayaka Mitoh and Yoichi Yusa from Nara Women’s University in Japan, stumbled upon the slugs talent while observing the creatures in their laboratory. One day, I found an individual of
The discovery One day in the lab, Sayaka Mitoh, a scientist at Nara Women s University in Japan, spotted something super weird. One of the sea slugs she was studying had decapitated itself, yet its head kept on moving and didn’t die. This is an Elysia cf. marginata sea slug, one of two slugs found to be able to survive decapitation. (Image credit: Sayaka Mitoh/The Associated Press) Then, a few more started doing the same thing. She and her supervisor, Yoichi Yusa, then tried it themselves, cutting the heads off 16 sea slugs. Six of the creatures started regeneration, with three succeeding and surviving.