When danger strikes, humans usually have two choices — run or fight. But in the wild, some animals have figured out a third, much stranger option: drop part of their own body to survive. It’s called ...

Tail autotomy, the self-induced shedding of a tail, represents a remarkable evolutionary adaptation that enables both reptiles and arthropods to evade predation and other life‐threatening challenges.

Lizards possess a remarkable self-defense mechanism called autotomy, where they detach their tails to evade predators. The detached tail continues to wriggle due to reflexive nerve activity, ...

Lizards are famous for their strange ability to lose their own tails. This ability is called tail autotomy, a survival strategy in which a lizard voluntarily detaches its own tail. While this ...

Crabs possess a remarkable survival mechanism known as autotomy, allowing them to deliberately shed a limb when captured by a ...

For many creatures, having a limb caught in a predator’s mouth is usually a death sentence. Not starfish, though—they can detach the limb and leave the predator something to chew on while they crawl ...

At least two species of sacoglossan sea slugs are capable of severing their own heads from their bodies and then growing an entirely new body, including a heart and other internal organs. The authors ...

Denervation of the hind limb is a technique used to study peripheral nerve regeneration. Autotomy or autophagia is an undesirable response to denervation in such studies. Application of a commercially ...

It's long been known that lizards shed their tails to avoid being caught by predators, but now a similar behaviour has been seen in sea slugs. The Melibe leonina species sever their plate-like ...