Looks like opened pea pods with a shiny sheen, the sea snails Elysia vgl. marginal and Elysia atroviridis are not your average tummy tuck. First, they are members of sacoglossa, a clay slug known for taking algae from marine plants and for integrating them the chloroplasts of those algae in their own cells so that they can get energy from sunlight. These two snail species can also be extremely reborn; they can chop their heads and grow completely new bodies.
New research published today in Current Biology describes this incredible achievement of autotomy, or self-amputation. (It is noteworthy that the bodies do not generate new heads.) The discovery was made in Yoichi Yusa’s laboratory at Nara Women’s University in Japan, which is cultured sea snails from eggs to adulthood over generations better understand these slimy creatures.
Sayaka Mitoh, a university biologist and editor-in-chief of the recent paper, came across the well-intentioned self-shredding of the snail when she came across an individual in the laboratory whose head was no longer attached to his stuffed, pickled body. But his head is still moving.
“We did not think they would carry out such an unusual automation,” Mitoh said in an email. “This finding was quite a serendipity.”
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After the team found one individual who was self-cut, they investigated why and exactly how the breakup occurred. These observations attempted to cause self-decapitation, by mimicking the kind of volatile nipples that would make a marine predator on the snail in the wild (perhaps, they guess, the snail separating with its body was similar to a fighter pilot using an ejection seat).
The researchers tied a nylon cord where the head of the nude met the body, where it appeared as if the nude had the chance to make the bodily-cranial tear. They did it lightly enough, more like a too-tight tie than a suffocating agent – but the night locks did not have respiratory systems like vertebrates..
Although the true nature of the autotomy remains unknown, the team was able to cause autonomy in all but one snail within a day. In the newspaper, Mitoh’s team suggested that autotomy can take place in nature Elysia atroviridis because the snail is often infested with planktonic parasites – perhaps leaving a parasite-infested body behind to grow a new one is the easiest way to deal with the infection. The researchers found that the naked days can go by without their hearts (located in the body, just below the breaking plane), and, in the course of a couple weeks, the new bodies were almost at full size. In the newspaper, the team claimed that the slug could survive without their bodies by surviving purely from them photosynthetic abilities.
“While it may sound impossible for a few days without a heart from our human perspective, these animals breathe through their skin and have no gills,” he said. Elise Laetz, an expert in photosynthesis of sea snails at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who is not connected to the new study. “It does not surprise me that they can withstand a week without a heart pumping oxygen-rich hemolymphs (like blood for invertebrates) around their bodies while giving birth to a new one.”
Laetz said in an email that the idea of photosynthesis-as-rations seemed less likely, as many of the mechanisms for kleptoplasty (that unique ability of take algal chloroplasts and use them to exert solar energy) is located in the body, not in the head.
“Chloroplasts are stored in the digestive gland of the naked, which is highly branched and located mainly in the body of most sacoglossan species. “When the snail automates its body, it throws away most of its chloroplasts and therefore most of the energy it can get from those chloroplasts can get away,” Laetz said. “I think the snail is more likely to fuel regeneration by feeding directly after it automates its body, as the authors noted.”
Much more research needs to be done to better understand how these tortuous little snails exist without the help (or obstruction) of the majority of their bodily form. Tthe new observations indicate that there are many more questions to ask of thise animals.
“We want to study whether other types of sacoglossans have this ability, to study the evolutionary pattern and process of such extreme autotomy and regeneration,” Mitoh said. ‘The function of the automation is also worth studying. In addition, we will further investigate the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon at the tissue and cellular level. ”
They may not has the charisma of a ‘corgi ” giraffe or the a lot of DNA from a platypus, but the photosynthesis, self-decapitation sea snails within sacoglossa deserve just as much attention. The headless bodies will still be examined, and the bodyless heads even more.
“Observations such as those presented in this article point to the need for fundamental scientific research on all branches of the tree of life,” Laetz said. “You never know when an animal as harmless as a sea snail has the ability to lead dedicated research.”