Meet the worm with a thousand tails

A recent genetic study of *Ramisyllis kingghidorahi*, a rare worm with hundreds of tails, revealed that body region influences gene activity more than sex. The research focused on the genetic activity patterns during stolonization, the process by which the worm produces detachable reproductive units, challenging conventional understandings of animal bodies and offering insights into the flexibility of life.

Read the full article at https://www.paperleap.com/blog/articles/meet-the-worm-with-a-thousand-tails-0cccul

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
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All the content is also available on paper leap dot com. Okay, ready,
let's start a worm with one head, but hundreds of tales,
each of which can sprout tiny, reproductive bodies that swim
off on their own. This is no fantasy, it's the

(00:43):
daily reality of Ramacillus king godora heat, a rare marine
worm discovered living inside sponges off the coast of Japan. Recently,
a team of researchers from Germany, Japan, Australia, and Spain
published the first genetics study of this strange species in
BMC Genomics. Their work dives deep into the biology of

(01:06):
the worm, exploring how its many tails coordinate reproduction and
what that can teach us about the flexibility of life itself.
Most worms have a simple body plan, head at one end,
tail at the other R King Kodorhi, first described in
twenty twenty two, breaks all the rules. It lives embedded
in sponges, sending its body branching through the sponge like

(01:29):
roots of a tree. At the tips of those branches
lie hundreds, sometimes thousands, of posterior ends. From these tips,
the worm produces stolons, which are little, detachable reproductive units,
complete with eyes, tiny brains, and swimming bristles. Once mature,
the stolons break off and swim away to meat, leaving

(01:51):
the parent worm safe inside the sponge to repeat the process.
This remarkable reproductive trick is called stolinization, and while it
occurs in many scilid worms, no other animal does it
on such a grand scale. Scientists have long wondered how
does one small head coordinate reproduction across hundreds of tails.

(02:14):
In simpler cilid worms, hormones and signals from the front
end of the body regulate one's stolon's form. In a
branching species like R. King Gudorhi, this control system must
somehow be amplified across its sprawling body. That's where genetics
comes in. By comparing patterns of gene activity, which genes

(02:36):
are turned on or off in different body parts of male, female,
and non reproductive worms. The researchers hope to uncover the
hidden choreography of stolenization. The team collected specimens by scuba
diving off Sado Island. Since these worms only live inside
certain sponges, the task was anything but easy. Back in

(02:58):
the lab, they extracted a molecule that reflects which genes
are active in a cell from three regions, which were
the head, end, the mid body, and the stolons themselves.
By sequencing and comparing this RNA, they created the first transcriptomes,
a kind of genetic activity map for a branched annelid worm.

(03:20):
They made several discoveries. First, location matters more than sex.
A worm's body region influenced gene activity more strongly than
whether the worm was male or female. The stolons in particular,
showed the most unique gene expression patterns, reflecting their intense
role in producing eggs or sperm and developing into free

(03:42):
swimming units. This is because the scientists discovered that the
head is quieter than expected. Earlier studies suggested that the
head plays a central role in triggering stolen formation through hormones.
Yet in this species, far fewer head specific genes were
differentially active than expected. That raises new questions. Does the

(04:05):
worm rely on non genetic mechanisms or are the genetic
signals simply harder to detect. Finally, classic developmental genes like
wint and hawks, which are famous for controlling body segmentation
and growth, barely showed up in the data. This aligns
with the growing idea that Stolon's, despite resembling little worms,

(04:27):
aren't true body segments, but rather unique reproductive offshoots. When
we think of worms, we often imagine simple, dull creatures.
Hidden in coral reefs and sponge forests are organisms that
rewrite the rules of biology. A worm with one head
and a thousand tails sending out fleets of tiny, free

(04:49):
swimming offspring. It's a story as marvelous as any myth,
but written in genes and seawater. That's it for this
episode the paper Leap podcast. If you found it thought provoking, fascinating,
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(05:13):
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