This made it possible to obtain three-dimensional images both of the worms’ different internal organs and of the interior of the sponges that they inhabit. For their analysis, they combined techniques such as histology, electronic optical microscopy, immunohistochemistry, confocal laser microscopy, and X-ray computed microtomography. They collected samples, some of which are now located in the collections of the Biodiversity Museum at the University of Göttingen. The research team found the host sponges and their guest worms in a remote area in Darwin, Australia, where these animals live. The results were published in the Journal of Morphology. In addition, they describe the anatomical details and nervous system of its unusual reproductive units, the stolons, which form their own brain when detached for fertilization, allowing them to navigate their environment. The researchers discovered that the complex body of this worm spreads extensively in the canals of their host sponges. An international research team led by the Universities of Göttingen and Madrid is the first to describe the internal anatomy of this intriguing animal. The marine worm Ramisyllis multicaudata, which lives within the internal canals of a sponge, is one of only two such species possessing a branching body, with one head and multiple posterior ends. International research team including Göttingen University first to describe tree-like internal anatomy of symbiotic worm and sponge. The yellow structure is a differentiation of the digestive tube typical of the Family Syllidae. Bifurcation of the gut can be seen where the worm branches. Fragment of the anterior end of an individual living worm (Ramisyllis multicaudata) dissected out of its host sponge.
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