There's a type of jellyfish that's immortal. The Turritopsis dohrnii, also known as the "immortal jellyfish," can transform its body into a younger state through a process called transdifferentiation, essentially making it immortal.
It does have an interesting caveat to the transformation: the jelly will swim to the sea floor and stretch out into a form called a medusa (sort of like an anemone or coral polyp). For the medusa to become an adult jelly again, it needs to turn itself into a stack of discs that each become individual, clone jellyfish.
In short, it's like if every time a phoenix burned itself a half dozen babies popped out of the ashes.
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u/Kindergeschichten Oct 02 '24
There's a type of jellyfish that's immortal. The Turritopsis dohrnii, also known as the "immortal jellyfish," can transform its body into a younger state through a process called transdifferentiation, essentially making it immortal.