No Organs, No Problem: Weird Animal Hunts Without Nerves or Muscles

This tiny multicellular animal — only a millimeter across — has nothing recognizable as muscle or nerve cells. Trichoplax "behaves as if it has a nervous system, yet lacks typical nerves and synapses," the connections between brain cells over which information travels, said study senior author Thomas Reese, a senior investigator at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland. Trichoplax adhaerans (or Trix, as the researchers call it) is found wor