{"id":721558,"date":"2026-06-07T19:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T19:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/721558\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T19:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T19:40:10","slug":"these-sea-cucumbers-seem-to-have-zombie-flesh-that-doesnt-die-when-lopped-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/721558\/","title":{"rendered":"These sea cucumbers seem to have ‘zombie’ flesh that doesn’t die when lopped off"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. JOHN\u2019S \u2014 A scientist in St. John\u2019s, N.L., has found that bits of flesh amputated from scarlet sea cucumbers can heal themselves and carry on in a state somewhere between life and death.<\/p>\n

Sara Jobson is a doctoral student in the ocean sciences department at Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador, and she is a co-author on a paper about the phenomena recently published in Science Advances.<\/p>\n

Jobson noted that typically, if someone lops off a chunk of flesh from an animal, the tissue will die \u2014 and it will be pretty obvious that it\u2019s dying.<\/p>\n

But things are different for the scarlet sea cucumber, or psolus fabricii, which is found in the North Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n

When Jobson and her colleagues amputated bits of a cucumber\u2019s tube feet, the pieces quickly healed themselves and grew into spherical blobs \u2014 and they stayed that way for years.<\/p>\n

She describes the tissue as \u201czombie\u201d-like because it didn\u2019t regenerate like living tissue would, but it also didn\u2019t die.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just existing as this blob,\u201d Jobson said in an interview. \u201cIs it alive? It\u2019s not reproducing, it\u2019s not regrowing into (another sea cucumber), but it\u2019s not dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur little lab zombies are on that line between life and death,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 7, 2026.<\/p>\n

Sarah Smellie, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

\t\tKeep it Factual<\/p>\n

Add CityNews Halifax as a trusted source on Google to see more local stories from us.<\/p>\n

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