by Anthony
Recent studies have shown that the sand dollar larvae copy them self when they sense a predator is near. Scientist exposed a 4-day-old sand dollar larvae to a fish mucus which gave them the sign of danger. Within 24 hours the larvae cloned itself.
“It’s the first time we’ve seen anything clone itself in response to cues that predators are near,” said researcher Dawn Vaughn, a biology doctoral student at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories.
A sand dollar larvae are like tiny globs. They float with plankton in the sea and are very easy targets for hungry fish. After 6 weeks they settle on the sea flore and eventually become adults.
I like this article cause I could remember when I was younger always trying to find sand dollars on the floor. It was really cool to learn about them and it was very interesting to know that the larvae can actually clone them elves. I have never heard of anything like this before.
