Sea Slugs: Detaching Heads And Regenerating A Whole New Body

Wonderful Phenomenon Discovered Accidently By Japanese Researchers

Japan, Mar 11: A team of researchers were studying the life cycle of sacoglossan sea slugs in their lab. One day a team member noticed a strange behaviour: the sea slug’s head was cut off from its body. Adding to it, within minutes of separating, the head was moving on its own and starting to eat some algae. The rest of the body with heart was sluggish with less movement. Within days, the wound at the back of the head closed up. Its heart started to regenerate within a week and after three weeks it had completely regenerated its body. They were surprised to see a different autotomy (an animal’s voluntary shedding of a body part). The cast-off bodies did not regenerate a new head and died over a period of time.

The team is analysing the reason for this strange phenomenon and think that cells like stem cells (cells with the unique ability to develop into specialised cells in the body) at the cut end of the neck are capable of regeneration. They were able to trap energy from the chloroplast of the algae and fuel their bodies by photosynthesis. This phenomenon is known as kleptoplasty.