• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

This Worm’s Rear End Sprouts Eyes And Swims Off When It’s Time To Mate

November 22, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

When it’s time for Megasyllis nipponica to spawn, its butt swims off. Technically called a stolon, the annelid worm’s rear end sprouts eyes and swimming equipment to depart the adult body on which it developed and go in search of the opposite sex.

These worms have adapted an approach to reproduction that sees them jettison their rear end, a segment that’s equipped with gonads, so that it can go it alone to spawn in a process known as stolonization. With eyes, antennae, and swimming bristles, the detached stolon can swim autonomously, leaving its gonadless body in the dust.

Advertisement

It’s a bizarre life cycle that’s had scientists scratching their heads. How does the “head” of the stolon develop in the mid-body of the adult worm? Researchers decided to find out by combining histological and morphological observations to see in what order the changes took place, and what mechanisms could be driving them.

Their investigations revealed that the first step involves the formation of gonads at the worm’s butt end. Next comes the stolon’s “head” which develops in the worm’s midriff, the place where eventually the stolon will detach itself. The stolon holds on long enough to develop nerves and a “brain” that enables it to sense and react autonomously. 



The next step was to dive into the gene expression that could be driving this transformation from the rear end of a worm to a self-driving gamete delivery service. The team discovered that a group of head formation genes that are well documented in the head regions of other animals was found at the point on the worms’ bodies where their stolon’s “head” would develop.

Advertisement

It seems the expression of these genes is associated with gonad development in M. nipponica. “This shows how normal developmental processes are modified to fit the life history of animals with unique reproductive styles,” explained study lead Professor Toru Miura from the University of Tokyo in a statement.

As for why the stolon developed a “head” but no body (it doesn’t have a digestive tract, for instance), it seems this may be to do with the expression of genes that remain active even while the rear body segment of the worm is getting ready to go solo.

the process of stolonization

The top illustration shows staging based on morphological characteristics. The lower bands show the transitions in gene expressions upregulated in anterior (blue) and posterior (orange) body parts.

Image credit: Nakamura et al 2023 (CC BY 4.0)

“Interestingly, the expressions of Hox genes that determine body-part identity were constant during the process,” continued Miura. “This indicates that only the head part is induced at the posterior body part to control spawning behavior for reproduction.”  

The team will continue their work into sex determination and endocrine regulation in syllid worms like M. nipponica (and the many-butted King Ghidorah worm), but this marks the first time we’ve been able to crack how these worms’ butts swim off and spawn without their bodies. Suddenly dating apps don’t seem so messed up.

Advertisement

The study is published in Scientific Reports.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Paris ramps up security as jihadist attacks trial starts
  2. Cricket-‘Western bloc’ has let Pakistan down, board chief says
  3. Ancient Bison Found In Permafrost Is So Well Preserved Scientists Want To Clone It
  4. Where Inside Us Do We Feel Love?

Source Link: This Worm’s Rear End Sprouts Eyes And Swims Off When It’s Time To Mate

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • What Is An Einstein Cross – And Why Is The Latest One Such A Unique Find?
  • If We Found Life On Mars, What Would That Mean For The Fermi Paradox And The Great Filter?
  • The Longest Living Mammals Are Giants That Live Up To 200 Years In The Icy Arctic
  • Entirely New Virus Detected In Bat Urine, And It’s Only The 4th Of Its Kind Ever Isolated
  • The First Ever Full Asteroid History: From Its Doomed Discovery To Collecting Its Meteorites
  • World’s Oldest Pachycephalosaur Fossil Pushes Back These Dinosaurs’ Emergence By 15 Million Years
  • The Hole In The Ozone Layer Is Healing And On Track For Full Recovery In The 21st Century, Thanks To Science
  • First Sweet Potato Genome Reveals They’re Hybrids With A Puzzling Past And 6 Sets Of Chromosomes
  • Why Is The Top Of Canada So Sparsely Populated? Meet The “Canadian Shield”
  • Humans Are In The Middle Of “A Great Evolutionary Transition”, New Paper Claims
  • Why Do Some Toilets Have Two Flush Buttons?
  • 130-Year-Old Butter Additive Discovered In Danish Basement Contains Bacteria From The 1890s
  • Prehistoric Humans Made Necklaces From Marine Mollusk Fossils 20,000 Years Ago
  • Zond 5: In 1968 Two Soviet Steppe Tortoises Beat Humans To Orbiting Around The Moon
  • Why Cats Adapted This Defense Mechanism From Snakes
  • Mother Orca Seen Carrying Dead Calf Once Again On Washington Coast
  • A Busy Spider Season Is Brewing: Why This Fall Could See A Boom Of Arachnid Activity
  • What Alternatives Are There To The Big Bang Model?
  • Magnetic Flip Seen Around First Photographed Black Hole Pushes “Models To The Limit”
  • Something Out Of Nothing: New Approach Mimics Matter Creation Using Superfluid Helium
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version