The flatworm's turn

Some Polyclad Flatworms from the Hawaiian Islands

ONE MAY SUPPOSE that a rich polyclad fauna exists along the shores of the Hawaiian Islands, but our knowledge of Hawaiian polyclads is, in fact., very limited. As far as I can ascertain, only the follo.wing species are recorded from the Hawaiian Islands in the literature: Planocera hawaiiensis Heath, 1907; Taenioplana teredini Hyman, 1944; and 5tylochoplana inquilina Hyman, 1950. The first meri...

Anatomy of Polyclad Flatworms

As their name suggests, these free living worms are generally dorso-ventrally flattened being no more than a few millimeters thick. Sizes range from less than one millimeter to over 30 centimeters. Most polyclads are extremely delicate, typically elongate and/or oval with a smooth dorsal surface. Some genera, however, display dorsal papillae (Acanthozoon, Thysanozoon). Since the worms have tent...

To the Framingham data, turn, turn, turn.

Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado: Bootstrapping flatworms into the molecular age

T he fl atworm Schmidtea mediter-ranea (a freshwater planarian) can regenerate its entire body— including complex structures such as reproductive organs and its head—from a fragment as small as 1/279 th of the animal. What grants planarians this extraordinary regenerative capacity, and why don't humans share this power? It takes a person as resilient as a pla-narian to answer these kinds of que...

Developmental Regulatory Genes in Parasitic Flatworms

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