You might think you have seen something like this on your plate before. But the image above was actually made using a microscope and an antibody that marked the tubulin protein in the tentacles of a Limaria pellucida mollusk bright green. The technique highlighted the animal’s innervation, from the central nerve to the branches in the appendages that stretch out around the yellowish-orange animal, which looks something like a four-centimeter-long mussel and inhabits the São Sebastião channel in São Paulo. Genome studies have demonstrated the tactile and chemical-sensing properties of these appendages. “They don’t have a head. Their primary contact with the environment is through their tentacles,” says Jorge Audino, from the University of São Paulo (USP).
Image submitted by zoologist Jorge Audino, currently a postdoctoral fellow at USP’s Institute of Biosciences
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