20091205

Breaking up is hard to do...

apparently not. The bizarre behavior in my tank continues. Blanket suddenly decided to clone itself. This is the first time I have ever witnessed this sort of behavior in marine life - or any life for that matter. It was fascinating. In the above pic you can see blanket is stretching himself out into two forms.

In this pic above he has really started the split. His body has separated and he is still held together by his outer skin.

*Snap* Still has a small hold but that's about it.

Ta daaaa. Two Blankets. Both are very healthy. But this raises an important question for me. Which one is now Blanket? They are both the same genetic material. Do I continue to call them both Blanket? I'm thinking I should re-name one of them.... Hmmmm. Meet Blanket and Blanket's clone "Snuggie".

5 comments:

Mutty said...

Nature is incredible isn't it.
Shame we're fucking the planet up.
Great photos. :-)

Tom said...

How amazing, great photos. :)

wcs said...

Maybe just call him/her/it "Snap."

Peter said...

Where's the pinkish colour it first had? Or is it the stretch that left it white[ish].

Brian must have tasted good so 'Blanket' can mutate to two. *wink*

Adaptive Radiation said...

OMG...as both a biologist and a fellow aquarist, that's pretty darn amazing. You are very lucky...I've never seen fission first hand. Yay for asexual reproduction.