Starfishes are weirdly shaped animals. Scientists have long puzzled over how a starfish body equates to the more typical animal arrangement of a head on one ...
That’s hilarious, that the three sections of a bilateral body plan are two times brain and then the rest. I guess, it’s the lowest common denominator, though, as you can’t really section off a snail, for example.
Would be interesting whether the starfish larvae have tissue that’s genetically the trunk.
Wikipedia tells me that apparently the adult mouth forms on the left side of the larva body, the adult anus on the right side, so it’s certainly not as simple as just the trunk shortening until the head remains.
That’s hilarious, that the three sections of a bilateral body plan are two times brain and then the rest. I guess, it’s the lowest common denominator, though, as you can’t really section off a snail, for example.
Would be interesting whether the starfish larvae have tissue that’s genetically the trunk.
Wikipedia tells me that apparently the adult mouth forms on the left side of the larva body, the adult anus on the right side, so it’s certainly not as simple as just the trunk shortening until the head remains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brachiolaria