{"id":88459,"date":"2019-03-06T15:02:27","date_gmt":"2019-03-06T23:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/scientists-find-worms-that-recently-evolved-the-ability-to-regrow-a-complete-head"},"modified":"2019-03-06T15:02:27","modified_gmt":"2019-03-06T23:02:27","slug":"scientists-find-worms-that-recently-evolved-the-ability-to-regrow-a-complete-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/scientists-find-worms-that-recently-evolved-the-ability-to-regrow-a-complete-head","title":{"rendered":"Scientists find worms that recently evolved the ability to regrow a complete head"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-find-worms-that-recently-evolved-the-ability-to-regrow-a-complete-head3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>An international group of researchers including biologists from the University of Maryland found that at least four species of marine ribbon worms independently evolved the ability to regrow a head after amputation.<\/p>\n<p>Regeneration of amputated <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/body+parts\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">body parts<\/a> is uncommon but does exist throughout the <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/animal+world\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">animal world<\/a>\u2014from salamanders, spiders and sea stars that can regrow appendages to a <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/species\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">species<\/a> of ribbon worm that can regenerate an entire individual from just a small sliver of tissue. But regenerative abilities were broadly assumed to be an ancient trait that some species managed to hold on to while most others lost through evolution.<\/p>\n<p>This new study, which was published in the March 6, 2019 issue of <i>Proceedings of the Royal Society B<\/i>, turns that assumption on its head. In a survey of 35 species of marine ribbon <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/worms\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">worms<\/a>, the researchers found that the ability to regenerate an entire head, including a brain, evolved relatively recently in four <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/different+species\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">different species<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2019-03-scientists-worms-evolved-ability-regrow.html\">https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2019&#45;03-scientists-worms-evolved-ability-regrow.html<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An international group of researchers including biologists from the University of Maryland found that at least four species of marine ribbon worms independently evolved the ability to regrow a head after amputation. Regeneration of amputated body parts is uncommon but does exist throughout the animal world\u2014from salamanders, spiders and sea stars that can regrow appendages [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[385,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evolution","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}