{"id":37340,"date":"2021-04-06T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/?p=37340"},"modified":"2024-03-22T10:56:54","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T09:56:54","slug":"potw2114","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2114\/","title":{"rendered":"A multifunctional mouth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Despite their plant-like appearance and being named after the terrestrial flower, sea anemones are actually predatory animals that can be found both in deep oceans and in shallow coastal waters worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This image of a young <em>Nematostella vectensis<\/em> polyp, seen here in side view, was taken by Anniek Stokkermans, a PhD student in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/groups\/ikmi\/\">Ikmi group at EMBL Heidelberg<\/a>. It shows two of the characteristic tentacles as well as the gaping mouth of the animal. As sea anemones have an incomplete gut, the mouth also functions as an anus: waste and undigested matter is excreted through this opening. In addition, sea anemones breed by liberating sperm and eggs through the mouth into the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next to their multifunctional mouth, their whole metabolism is another fascinating research area. Recently the Ikmi group discovered that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/tentacle-development\/\">the growth of new tentacles happens not only when the sea anemone is a juvenile, but also throughout adulthood, and depends on the amount of food it eats.<\/a>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This image was taken with a confocal microscope, and shows cell nuclei (blue), muscles (red), and the protein actin (white) both in the cell cytoskeleton and in longitudinal and circular muscle fibres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Credit: Anniek Stokkermans\/EMBL<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have a stunning picture of your science, your lab or your site, you can submit it <a href=\"media@embl.org\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This image of a young Nematostella vectensis polyp shows two of the characteristic tentacles as well as the gaping mouth of the animal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":37350,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17591],"tags":[1726,4750,11022],"embl_taxonomy":[19301],"class_list":["post-37340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-picture-of-the-week","category-science-technology","tag-ikmi","tag-sea-anemone","tag-spotlight","embl_taxonomy-ikmi-group"],"acf":{"featured":false,"show_featured_image":false,"color":"#007B53","link_color":"#fff","article_intro":"","related_links":false,"article_sources":false,"in_this_article":false,"youtube_url":"","mp4_url":"","video_caption":"","press_contact":"None","vf_locked":false,"field_target_display":"embl","source_article":false},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[{"uuid":"a:3:{i:0;s:36:\"302cfdf7-365b-462a-be65-82c7b783ebf7\";i:1;s:36:\"6a2f2be6-8bb7-4425-b318-5ed992f715cc\";i:2;s:36:\"2a270b68-46c3-4b3f-92c5-0a65eb896c86\";}","parents":[],"name":["Ikmi group"],"slug":"ikmi-group","description":"What &gt; Developmental Biology &gt; Ikmi group"}],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A multifunctional mouth | EMBL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This image of a young Nematostella vectensis polyp shows two of the characteristic tentacles as well as the gaping mouth of the animal.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2114\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A multifunctional mouth | EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This image of a young Nematostella vectensis polyp shows two of the characteristic tentacles as well as the gaping mouth of the animal.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2114\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embl.org\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-04-06T07:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-03-22T09:56:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/potw2114.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mathias J\u00e4ger\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mathias J\u00e4ger\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2114\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2114\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Mathias J\u00e4ger\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/63a0ca26daa6707834de41dfddfc6a42\"},\"headline\":\"A multifunctional mouth\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-04-06T07:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-03-22T09:56:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2114\/\"},\"wordCount\":220,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2114\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/potw2114.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"ikmi\",\"sea anemone\",\"spotlight\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Picture of the week\",\"Science &amp; 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