Researchers discovered that comb jellies—one of the world's oldest animals—can fuse together into a single living organism. It's not just their bodies that connect but also their nervous and digestive systems, and it takes less than a couple hours to complete. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist Kei Jokura first observed the phenomena.
"I couldn't believe my eyes at first," said Jokura, lead author on a new scientific paper about the findings.
From CNN:
Mariana Rodriguez-Santiago, a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University, was working on her own project when Jokura appeared. "We were all amazed and astonished, thinking, 'How can they fuse and still be swimming and moving around like a unit?'" she said. She grabbed a pipette and gently poked one of the jellies. It squirmed. Simultaneously, so did the one to which it seemed to be attached. "We thought, 'Are they able to feel the same thing? Are they one individual? Two individuals? How can we disentangle this?'" she recalled[…]
"The fusion phenomenon has definitely brought up many interesting questions, such as which genes are involved in fusion, what happens to neural signaling, and what defines 'self' and 'nonself,'" said Jokura, now a postdoctoral researcher at Japan's National Institute for Basic Biology. "Each of these themes has the potential to challenge our fundamental understanding of biology."
Previously:
• Gorgeous footage of the rarely seen Giant Phantom Jellyfish
• Astonishing encounter with a nearly human-size jellyfish
• Don't pee on a jellyfish sting, and other venom no-nos