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sussvival instinct (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 6 days ago by fossilesque@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] danhab99@programming.dev 117 points 6 days ago

I read this thing's entire wiki page and it's fascinating!!

Imo it's not even an animal it's just a collection of cells that can survive on their own but just don't want too
It will rip itself into multiple parts spontaneously because cells don't coordinate too much. They don't have dedicated neurons but they have a decently complex peptide based protocol.
You can put a single Trichoplax animal through a sive that is fine enough not to damage the cells but separate them, and the cells will reform into the same animal
They can reproduce sexually but they don't have any of the markers that all males of all sexually reproducing species have. Plus because they only ever sexually reproduce when there's a high density of Trichoplaxs, it's basically a pattern of Trichoplax cells choosing to break away and combine with other cells to create new individuals.
They're just about as simple as e.coli and they're the simplest animals with about 50mill base pairs divided into 6 chromosomes
They can take the organelles of the cells they eat just because. The wiki article calls it symbiosis but that implies that organelles are alive and I don't think they are. I think Trichoplaxs can just take tools from other creatures to use.

[-] azi@mander.xyz 44 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I think you misread wikipedia when it talks about its endosymbioses. Whole bacteria are found within an organlle (the endoplasmic reticulum) of Trichoplaxs.

That being said what you described does happen in a number of organisms (including 'complex' ones like nudibranchs): they steal the chloroplasts from the algae they eat in a process called kleptoplasty. Seeing as mitochondria and chloroplasts originated as bacterial endosymbionts that were then heavily integrated into their hosts, calling kleptoplasty a form of symbiosis isn't that unusual.

[-] danhab99@programming.dev 19 points 6 days ago

Whole bacteria are found within an organlle

That is even more mind blowing to me

[-] Reddfugee42@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

Then I have to ask if you were aware that mitochondria were originally external, invasive organisms

[-] danhab99@programming.dev 1 points 4 days ago

Yes but mitochondria live in the cytoplasm. I guess I don't have much of a grasp of size differences that small so it blew me away to think to find a life form inside of the organelle of another lifeform.. I thought things were too small at that scale.

[-] Reddfugee42@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Still fuckin crazy that they are in our DNA now.

[-] azi@mander.xyz 18 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Fun fact: Animal embryos can be disassociated by depriving them of calcium (E-cadherin, the molecule that holds the cells together, needs to calcium to work) and then can be allowed to reassociate by adding back calcium. If you do this in early enough stages then the embryo will function and develop normally once reaggregated, despite all the cells being jumbled up

[-] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 6 days ago

"peptide-based protocol" is a pretty good band name

[-] davidgro@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

Cellular peptide cake with mint frosting

[-] notabot@lemm.ee 11 points 6 days ago

Thank you for the summary. I don't have time to go down a rabbit hole at the moment, so this was just enough to sate my curiosity until I do have time.

[-] bss03@infosec.pub 4 points 6 days ago

ISTR you can do the sieve thing with true living sponges, too. Life on earth is wild. I wonder if it will be considered mild once we find some interesting life off-planet.

[-] clonedhuman@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

Fucking interesting!

[-] neatobuilds@lemmy.today 51 points 6 days ago

[-] kibiz0r@midwest.social 43 points 6 days ago

how it looks like

This phrase drives me crazy.

[-] Nima@leminal.space 4 points 6 days ago

why?

[-] kibiz0r@midwest.social 41 points 6 days ago

Valid options are:

What it looks like
How it looks

Not:

How it looks like

[-] TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 13 points 6 days ago

this is really controversial, but as long as I can understand it, I think it's ok.

[-] Soulg@ani.social 15 points 6 days ago

Objectively correct take. The goal of communication has been met, anything else is just pedantry.

[-] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago

It's not at all controversial, it's the rules of English grammar.

[-] stray@pawb.social 5 points 6 days ago

The "rules" of a language describe how people use the language, but those conventions are subject to constant change because communication is a collaborative art. Some might say it's better to use a semicolon rather than a comma, for example.

[-] Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

*than a comma; for example

[-] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

Because this should now include an explanation of how it's looking like it does. What is the reason it has that color, and takes that exact form? This was obviously not the point of the post.

[-] SomGye@dormi.zone 36 points 6 days ago

A M O G U S

[-] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 20 points 6 days ago

[-] callyral@pawb.social 7 points 5 days ago

You like seeking patterns, don't you?

[-] pan0wski@infosec.pub 6 points 5 days ago

Mogus

[-] Caitlyynn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 6 days ago

sus

[-] P1k1e@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago

Mega sus

[-] Caitlyynn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 6 days ago

Amogsus

[-] NotLemming@lemm.ee 5 points 5 days ago

Not a single mention of how pink and sparkly

[-] azi@mander.xyz 11 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Early animals were likely very similar to Trichoplax, but they weren't Trichoplax. Trichoplax adherins is a modern species with just as many millions of years of evolution between it and the first animal as between us and the first animal. Just bugs me when people end up implying that orthogenisis is real

[-] lath@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago

Yo, if our universe is just the innards of a primordial microorganism, where can we find the mitochondria?

[-] LanguageIsCool@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago

“Ancestors, please guide me. What should I do?”

“Blob zlorg bzz”

[-] Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago

Get out of my head, get out of my head!!

[-] owl@infosec.pub 6 points 6 days ago

There is an organism among us.

[-] lars@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 6 days ago

Gramgram is that you

[-] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

Hmm.. Looks like a nebula...

[-] Object@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 days ago

I just recovered from the boomerang nebula :(

[-] RandomVideos@programming.dev 1 points 6 days ago

With the amount of things that kinda look like that, im surprised people havent started making conspiracy theories

[-] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 1 points 6 days ago

Written by a Geordie like.

[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

And plants. And funghi.

[-] azi@mander.xyz 4 points 6 days ago

No actually. If you consider the plants to be Archaeplastida (glaucophytes, red algae, and Viridiplantae) or Viridiplantae (the green algae including Embryophyta) then the common plant ancestor is unicellular (greens and reds evolved multicellularity independently). If you consider the plants to just be Embryophyta (the land plants) then they already had highly specialized cells and looked plant-like before they split off from the rest of the green algae.

I'm not sure if the fungal common ancestor is believed to have been unicellular or multicellular but if it was multicellular then it would've been filamentous like modern multicellular fungi, rather than a sheet of cells