The trick, however, was finding a way to watch the cells in vivo, which no one has previously been able to do.Ĭo-author Robert Steele, from UC Irvine, created transgenic hydra years ago: hydra which include some cells transferred from another species. "We can try to understand what look like very complicated processes in the living animal with relatively simple physics," lead author Eva-Maria Collins, a biophysicist at UC San Diego, said in a press release. Their research suggests that the openings are temporarily created by changing cells' size, not rearranging them, as was previously thought. Scientists at the University of California's San Diego and Irvine campuses used color-coded, transgenic proteins to help track cells around the hydras' mouth areas for the first time. Once they're done, the opening is sealed up again with a layer of tissue. The opening on their tubular bodies isn't just closed their mouths really disappear until it's time to digest dinner, which they catch with poison-barbed tentacles. But the less than one-inch creatures do have a fearsome ability that might wow even the original Hydra: each time they eat, the tiny freshwater-dwelling hydra must rip apart and sew up their own mouths.
On almost any measure, the multi-headed Hydra monster of Greek mythology is more fearsome than its real-life namesake: a genus of tiny freshwater polyps that snack on shrimp and other small invertebrates.
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