Water from Tasmania

While culture conditions have been nicely optimised for the closest thing we have to a "model organism" Schmidtea mediterranea (thanks to the hard work of our wonderful community over the years) the situation is somewhat more difficult for the many “non-model non-model species” in our collection (such as the pictured Cura pinguis of south-east Australia). 

Desperate times call for desperate measures: in this case, a delivery of water allegedly coming from a cave spring in Tasmania, all the way from an Australian supermarket. Fingers crossed it’ll do the trick, but first we need to see if the worms wiggle, eat, regenerate… and of course sexually reproduce! It can be tough to work with unconventional organisms, but seeing one regrow a head that has been lopped off in a matter of days makes it all worth it...

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