Thorn-of-crowns tissue regeneration

I was babysitting my cousin last weekend and we watched a scene from Hercules in which he had to battle a mythological monster called a Lernaean Hydra (hydra meaning water serpent). It was however very hard to defeat because everytime one of its heads were chopped off, two new ones would grow back.

 

This reminded me of the crown-of-thorns starfish we had talked about in bio class because it is quite monstrous as well and can regenerate limbs like the hydra. Not only does it have a body covered in sharp spines containing painfull neurotoxins, but it is destroying many coral reefs around the world. Their populations have been growing since the 1970's so control measures have had to be implemented such as cutting them apart. However people realised that since echinoderms have remarkable tissue regeneration, dismembering them will only cause them to grow into two new starfish and that method was eliminated.