Zoology hot take:
Brittle stars are just starfish (sea stars) which have made their way through the Amigara Fault.
https://mediachomp.com/the-enigma-of-amigara-fault-manga/
#Biology #Zoology #Echinoderms #BodyHorror #Starfish #BrittleStars #JunjiIto #Manga #AmigaraFault #Humor #NotionalReality
Fossil shows #starfish relative engaged in clonal fragmentation 150 million years ago https://phys.org/news/2024-05-fossil-germany-starfish-engaged-clonal.html
#Fossil evidence for the ancient link between clonal fragmentation, six-fold symmetry and an epizoic lifestyle in asterozoan #echinoderms https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2023.2832
"many species of #BrittleStars are capable of reproducing by splitting off parts of their body, both of which then regenerate, resulting in two distinct clonal creatures, a process known as clonal fragmentation"
A team of paleontologists from Germany and Austria reports that a brittle star fossil found in Germany shows evidence of clonal fragmentation 150 million years ago. Their paper is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
Brittle stars can learn just fine, even without a brain https://phys.org/news/2023-11-brittle-stars-fine-brain.html
Learning without a brain: classical conditioning in the ophiuroid Ophiocoma echinata. By Julia Notar et al. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00265-023-03402-x
"Relatives of #starfish, #BrittleStars spend most of their time hiding under rocks and crevices in the ocean or burrowing in the sand. They have no #brain to speak of—just nerve cords running down each of their five wiggly arms, which join to form a nerve ring near their mouth."
Peter Kisner ≈
Lukas VFN 🇪🇺