Animals that regenerate

While our bodies will generally make light work of repairing a cut in our skin or even healing a bone, some animals are able to go much further.

Deer and moose antlers are grown and shed each year at significant cost—a moose may have antlers that spread six feet and weigh upward of 40 pounds.

An axolotl can regenerate entire limbs, and a lizard a whole tail.

A flatworm can survive being cut in two, with the back half even regrowing a head and brain.

And in one of the most striking examples, sea stars are able, in many cases, to regrow a lost limb, and in some species, a lost limb contains everything it needs to regenerate a new body.

Incredible.

This sketch appears in my book Big Ideas Little Pictures