The chopped-off heads of at least two species of sea slugs can eat, walk, and probably even pass out waste during the one to three weeks it takes for their bodies - both the heart - to regeneration after being separated00000 at the neck.
How Long Does It Take Their Bodies to Grow Back?
Sayaka Mitoh at Nara Women's University in Japan explained that their bodies without a head can survive for up to a few months, with the heart still kicking until the flesh starts to decay, the bodies never grow back heads. The head has radial or teeth and brain, which might not be replaceable.
Mitoh was raising one species of sacoglossan sea slugs with her supervisor Yoichi Yusa also known as Elysia cf. marginata to research photosynthetic abilities of the slug when they found a living, detached head in their laboratory.
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Researcher's Latest Finding on Sea Slugs
Amazed, the researchers examined the slugs and discovered they all had a wrinkle around their necks that they believed may be a "pre-determined wreckage plane." They softly tied a tiny string around the necks of six lab-evolved slugs at this cutting and observed that all six detached their own heads, typically within a day.
"The head turns green with chloroplasts after it forage on algae," both when the body is chopped off and untouched, revealed Mitoh. The digestive glands of the slugs are believed to be allocated all around the body covering, involving the head. She further disclosed, which might give reasons on how the head has been alive.
39 Wild Slugs Mutilated Smaller Body Parts
The group noticed one hundred and sixty wild-trapped and lab-grown Elysia atroviridis (sacoglossans) every day until their normal death, typically, only before years. 39 wild slugs mutilated smaller body parts like feet-like appendages while three of the 145 wild slugs and five of the 15 lab-grown slugs detached their heads.
Several animals autotomize - hut body parts - to run from predators, so the researchers attempted poking and pinching another faction of slugs to simulate a predator attack, but not one of the animals reacted by cutting off anything. Rather, they observed that few of the field-compiled slugs had inside copepods, a crustacean parasitic - involving all 42 of those that had a body part cut off.
Species of Sacoglossans
Mitoh thinks species of sacoglossans autotomizes to discard internal parasites which impede their reproduction over their lifetime. But it is a theory and stays to be tested, and other motives may also be included.
If the objective is to get rid of parasites, the strategy comes at a great cost; older slugs did not overcome the severing act. This might appear like a dumb choice, explained Mitoh. But the elderly ones would anyway die soon enough, and they may have an opportunity of surviving and regrowing a parasite-free body.
One of the most vital parts to remember about sea slugs is that there are approximately 2,000 species. They are discovered in both deep and shallow areas of oceans.
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