Brainless But Brilliant
January 15, 2025
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0:52Now PlayingBrainless But Brilliant
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as posted by the channelBrittle stars are the more flexible cousins of sea stars. While sea stars move slowly across the seafloor on tiny feet, brittle stars whip their long arms around to swim, climb corals, and catch food drifting in the currents.
When threatened, they can completely detach their arms to escape predators.
Their arms are the "brains" of the operation. The arms are home to bundles of nerves that allow the brittle star to coordinate complex movements, without a central processing center. Brittle stars have demonstrated the ability to learn by association despite lacking a true brain.
Brittle stars belong to a family of marine animals called echinoderms that includes sea stars and sea urchins, and scientists have found similar learning abilities in these animals, too.
You can read the study on brittle star learning here:
"Learning Without a Brain: Classical Conditioning in the Ophiuroid Ophiocoma echinata," Julia C. Notar, Madeline C. Go, and Sönke Johnsen. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, Nov. 21, 2023. DOI: 10.1007/s00265-023-03402-x
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