No backside, no problem for some young sea spiders.
The creatures can regenerate nearly complete parts of their bottom halves — including muscles, reproductive organs and the anus — or make do without them, researchers report January 23 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The ability to regrow body parts isn’t super common, but some species manage to pull it off. Some sea slug heads can craft an entirely new body (SN: 3/8/21). Sea spiders and some other arthropods — a group of invertebrates with an exoskeleton — can regrow parts of their legs. But researchers thought new legs were the extent of any arthropod’s powers, perhaps
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