Did you know sea stars can regenerate their limbs?
Bat stars (Patiria miniata), like all other sea stars, are capable of regenerating their arms when they’ve been injured or removed—and sometimes, this results in more arms growing back than are called for!
Sea stars are typically born with five arms—but the intertidal zone is an unforgiving and dramatic place for invertebrates! Sea stars are food for many terrestrial and aquatic life forms. They are also known to shed limbs in an attempt to avoid predators and reproduce.
As a result, these fascinating creatures have developed a truly remarkable evolutionary talent: the ability to regrow limbs and even entire segments of their bodies, including their brains!
On our adventures we commonly see six-legged bat stars. We’ve seen a few sevens over the years on our adventures, but until very recently, never an eight...
Behold: an eight-legged bat star!:
Some species of sea star can grow an entire new body from a small portion of a single severed limb, while others have been observed to regenerate segments of their nervous system—employing special cells to form neurons; something that very few organisms are capable of doing. This undertaking can take months to years and involves a three-step process: a repair phase, an early regenerative phase and an advanced regenerative phase.
Have you ever seen an eight-legged sea star before?
“Bat Star”
(Patiria miniata)
Can you make out the visual of a shooting star in the eight-legged bat star photograph? We especially enjoy the way the vibrant green “Aggregating Anemones” in the photo appear to mimic a trail of star dust!
Yorumlar