Immortality Exists

This animal may have discovered the fountain of youth. It has astonishingly defeated death! The turritopsis nutricula is able to revert back into a polyp stage, or immature stage, after having reached sexual maturity. The jellyfish uses a process called transdifferentiation in which one type of cell is transformed into another type of cell. What they do is very similar to what salamanders do when regrowing limbs. The only difference is that this jellyfish has figured out a way to regrow it's entire body. By doing this, it can feasibly live forever. Of course, they don't all live forever because they have many other things to worry about, such as predation and disease. Most of these jellyfish are actually killed before they are even able to use their special abilities.

These beautiful creatures can be found in every ocean around the globe in temperate to tropical environments. The jellyfish you see above is a medusa, or mature jellyfish, and is only about 7mm long. You can tell that it is in it's mature stage because of its large number of tentacles. Very young turritopsis nutricula have only about 8 tentacles, but as they grow into adulthood they can have as many as 90 tentacles!

With the power of immortality, these tiny jellyfish may be rapidly growing in number. Scientists wonder if their population will soon become out of control.

[2] Did You Know?

Long-nosed armadillos, genus Dasypus, always give birth to 4 identical offspring. The fertilized egg splits into quarters, producing four perfectly identical quadruplets. These armadillos are the only vertebrates known to exhibit this characteristic. One possible reason for this might be to encourage the offspring to be altruistic, or to help each other. The more likely reason however, would be to overcome the physical constraint in the female's reproductive system that only leaves space for one egg prior to implantation.

[1] Did You Know?

Black Panthers are actually not a separate species. The name "black panther" refers to a cat with a pigment mutation that causes their fur to be black. If you look closely you can still see the rosette markings on the cat pictured above. This cat is a Jaguar, but leopards can also show the black pigmentation. There are also cats known as white panthers, but they are exceptionally rare.