Interesting tail (tale) of Japanese sea worm and its reproduction strategy

New Delhi : When it comes to animal kingdom, we get to learn the facts which appear like a fiction, but they are really not. In a latest development, it has been found how a Japanese sea worm detaches its reproductive part from the original body to look for the opposite sex and produce more of them.

The detached part of worm is called the stolon, and it swims around by itself and spawns when it meets the opposite sex. Interestingly, before getting detached from the original body, it develops its own eyes antennae and swimming bristles.

To study this interesting phenomenon, scientists studied the gene expression patterns during the development of sexually maturing worms. Ordinarily, the genes associated with "head formation" show lower expression in the central body region. However, as the reproductive structures of the worms take shape, these genes exhibit significantly higher expression in the mid-rear portion of the original body.

"Hox genes" determine the body segmentation along the worms’ bodies. The researchers initially thought that these genes would be expressed differently along the “anterior-posterior” axis.”

"Interestingly, the expressions of Hox genes that determine body-part identity were constant during the process,” said Miura, co-author of a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, in a press statement. As a result, the stolons don’t have a differentiated digestive tract and have repeated uniform body segments (except for the head and tail). “This indicates that only the head part is induced at the posterior body part to control spawning behavior for reproduction."