Looks like opened pods with a glossy shine, the sea snails Elysia cf. marginata and Elysia atroviridis are not your average gastropods. First, they are members of sacoglossa, a clade of snails known to extract and integrate the algae from marine plants into the chloroplasts of those algae their own cells, allowing them to get energy from sunlight T.he two types of slugs are also capable of extreme regeneration; they can their heads separate and whole new bodies grow.
New Research published describes this incredible achievement in Current Biology today autotomy or self amputation(It’s worth noting that the bodies don’t generate new heads. The discovery was made in Yoichi Yusa’s laboratory at Nara Women’s University in Japan, where cultures sea snails from eggs to maturity from generations to better understand these slimy creatures.
Sayaka Mitoh, a university biologist and lead author of the recent paper, stumbled upon the snails’ well-intentioned self-destruction when she encountered a person in the lab whose head was no longer connected to his pleated, pickle-colored body. But his head still moved.
“We didn’t think they would perform such an unusual autotomy,” Mitoh said in an email. “This finding was completely serendipity.”
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Once the team found a separate person, they set out to find out why and exactly how that breakup occurred. These observations included attempts to induce a self-decapitation, by imitating the kind of fleeting nips a marine predator would make on the slug in the wild (perhaps, they guessed, the snail’s parting with its body was similar to a fighter jet pilot using an ejector seat).
The researchers tied a nylon cord around where the snail’s head touched its body, where the snail appeared to have a predisposition to cause the bodily-cranial split. They did this lightly enough, more like a too-tight tie than a choking agent – but the snails don’t have a respiratory system like vertebrates, so no biggie anyway
While the true nature of the autotomy remains unknown, the team was able to induce autonomy in all but one snail within a day. In the paper, Mitoh’s team suggested that autotomy could happen in the wild Elysia atroviridis because the snail is regularly burdened with planktonic parasites – it may leave a parasite-infested body to grow a new body is the easiest way to deal with the contaminationThe researchers found that the snails could go for days without their hearts (located in the body, just below the fracture surface), and, over the course of a few weeks, the new bodies were almost full size. In the paper, the team stated that the slugs could survive without their bodies by surviving purely on their bodies photosynthetic capabilities.
“While living a few days without a heart may sound impossible from our human perspective, these animals actually breathe through their skin and have no gills at all,” said Elise Laetz, an expert in photosynthesizing sea snails at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who not affiliated with the new study“I’m not surprised they can go through a week without a heart pumping oxygen-rich hemolymph (like blood for invertebrates) through their bodies while regenerating a new one.”
Laetz said in an email that the idea of photosynthesis seemed like ration less likely, because many of the mechanisms for valve surgery (that unique ability of taking and using algal chloroplasts to exploit them solar energy) are in the body, not the head.
“Chloroplasts are stored in the snail’s digestive gland, which is highly branched and resides mainly in the body of most sacoglossan species. When the snail autotomizes its body, it throws out most of its chloroplasts and therefore most of the energy it could get from those chloroplasts, ”said Laetz. “I think the snail is more likely to stimulate regeneration by feeding right after it automatically makes its body, as the authors noted.”
Much more research needs to be done to better understand how these squiggly little slugs exist without the help (or hindrance) of most of their bodily form. T.The new observations suggest that there are many more questions to ask of these animals.
“We want to investigate whether other species of sacoglossans have this ability to study the evolutionary pattern and process of such extreme autotomy and regeneration,” said Mitoh. “The function of the autotomy is also worth studying. In addition, we will further investigate the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon at the tissue and cellular level. “
Maybe not have the charisma from a corgi ” giraffe or the crazy platypus DNA, but the photosynthesis, self-decapitation sea snails in sacoglossa deserve equal attention. The headless bodies will be examined, and the disembodied heads even more so.
“Observations such as those presented in this article underscore the need for basic scientific research into all branches of the tree of life,” said Laetz. “You never know when an animal as harmless as a sea slug has a skill that could lead to advances in applied research.”