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Planarians are bilaterian flatworms that lack a fluid-filled body cavity, and the space between their organ systems is filled with parenchyma. [5] [13] Planarians lack a circulatory system, and absorb oxygen through their body wall. They uptake food to their gut using a muscular pharynx, and nutrients diffuse to internal tissues.
Planaria is a genus of planarians in the family Planariidae. Due to its excellent ability to regenerate, species of Planaria has also been used as model organisms in regeneration studies. [ 1 ] When an individual is cut into pieces, each piece has the ability to regenerate into a fully formed individual. [ 2 ]
Neoblasts are somatic adult stem cells that are abundant in planarians. Morphologically, neoblasts are round and small, 5 to 10 μm, and have a large nucleus and scant cytoplasm. [1] They are the only dividing planarian cells. [3] Neoblasts are found in the planarian parenchyma across the entire body, outside organ systems. [1]
Two planarian species have been used successfully in the Philippines, Indonesia, Hawaii, New Guinea, and Guam to control populations of the imported giant African snail Achatina fulica, which was displacing native snails. However, these planarians are themselves a serious threat to native snails and should not be used for biological control.
Bipalium is a genus of large predatory land planarians. They are often loosely called "hammerhead worms" or "broadhead planarians" because of the distinctive shape of their head region. Land planarians are unique in that they possess a "creeping sole", a highly ciliated region on the ventral epidermis that helps them to creep over the substrate ...
Planarians exhibit an extraordinary ability to regenerate lost body parts. For example, a planarian split lengthwise or crosswise will regenerate into two separate individuals. In one experiment, T.H. Morgan found that a piece corresponding to 1/279th of a planarian [ 44 ] or a fragment with as few as 10,000 cells can successfully regenerate ...
Geoplanidae is a family of flatworms known commonly as land planarians or land flatworms. [ 2 ] These flatworms are mainly predators of other invertebrates, which they hunt, attack and capture using physical force and the adhesive and digestive properties of their mucus. [ 3 ]
[6] [5] The planarians retained this acquired information after being sliced and regenerated, even after multiple slicings to produce a planarian where none of the original trained planarian was present. [5] The same held true after the planarians were ground up and fed to untrained cannibalistic planarians, usually Dugesia dorotocephala.