The 6 Most Hilarious Things We Learned about Animals in 2024 | Scientific American

This listicle from Scientific American features research from the 2023 Grass Lab at the MBL. The study was led by Kavli-Grass Fellow Kei Jokura in collaboration with Fellows Tommi Anttonen and Mariana Rodriguez-Santiago, and Grass Lab Associate Director Oscar Arenas Sabogal.

From a comb jelly with two butts to wing-slapping ants, this animal research made us laugh this year

Science has the ability to inspire awe, to improve our lives—and, sometimes, to make us laugh. Below, Scientific American has rounded up some of the things we learned about animals this year that gave us a good chuckle and brightened our days a bit.

Double Butts

Behold the “Franken-jelly.” What at first appeared to researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., to be a single “sea walnut” comb jelly (Mnemiopsis leidyi)—with two separate anuses—turned out to be two individuals that had fused together after being injured.

When one side of the combined entity was prodded, both of the conjoined bodies responded, which suggested that the two nervous systems had become one. Food was shared between both digestive tracts. “The extent and the rapidity of that integration is pretty shocking,” says Steven Haddock, a marine biologist who studies ctenophores (gelatinous sea animals that resemble jellyfish) at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Read the full story at ScientificAmerican.com

Source: The 6 Most Hilarious Things We Learned about Animals in 2024 | Scientific American