Starfish have heads or tails? Research on marine animals

Starfish have been thought to be headless for many years, however, a recent study suggests that this may not be true, as they have unusually shaped bodies, unlike those of most animals, which have long baffled biologists with their unusual shapes.

Echinoderms are a class of animals that makes up the sea urchin, sand dollar, and sea cucumbers, all of which belong to the echinoderm family.

Due to their symmetrical body structure, their bodies are divided into five sections, and until now, it had been “impossible” to determine how these chunks of their body compare with the bodies of other animals.

Even specialists could not figure out whether it was the head or the tail.

Until recently, scientists have been unable to unravel the composition of echinoderms, according to Dr Jeff Thompson of the University of Southampton, for as long as we have been studying them.

To shed some light on the issue, an international team led by scientists at Stanford University in the United States examined the molecular markers present in starfish, as well as those found in other animals belonging to a larger animal group called deuterostomes, in an attempt to shed some light on the issue.

It includes both echinoderms and vertebrates, but because they all descend from one common ancestor, scientists can compare how these two groups developed based on the similarities they share.

With cutting-edge molecular and genomic approaches, the team created a 3D map illustrating the locations where certain genes are expressed during a starfish’s development.

There is just one big crawling head at the end of the road, and that is it.

Among other things, Dr Thompson, the co-author of the study, also noted the absence of a “critical part” of the typical bilateral body.

In his words, he explained, “There was no expression of the genes that normally contribute to the patterning of the trunk of an animal.”.

“It appears that the body plan of the entire echinoderm species is roughly equivalent to that of the head in other groups of animals.”

As a result of these findings, it appears that starfish are not headless, but that their progenitors’ bodies have simply been lost over time, and so they have become just heads.

According to Laurent Formery, the co-author of the Stanford University study, it could best be described as a head crawling across the seafloor.

The peer-reviewed study was published in the journal Nature.