---
title: "Roundworm · Animals and other organisms · Entities · Simulation Hypothesis"
url: https://simulation-hypothesis.com/entities/celegans
description: "A worm about a millimetre long with exactly 302 neurons. It was the first animal to have its complete wiring diagram mapped."
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
credit: "Ross Allan Dahl, Simulation Hypothesis (simulation-hypothesis.com)"
---

[Entities](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/entities) › Animals and other organisms › Invertebrates with brains

# Roundworm

Caenorhabditis elegans

A worm about a millimetre long with exactly 302 neurons. It was the first animal to have its complete wiring diagram mapped.

Neurons

302 measured  · whole nervous system (hermaphrodite) 

White JG, Southgate E, Thomson JN, Brenner S (1986) The structure of the nervous system of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Phil Trans R Soc Lond B 314(1165):1-340\. doi:10.1098/rstb.1986.0056.

## Evidence

* It shows habituation, associative learning and memory. Its full connectome is known (now updated for both sexes).  
Cook SJ, Jarrell TA, Brittin CA, Wang Y, et al. (2019) Whole-animal connectomes of both Caenorhabditis elegans sexes. Nature 571(7763):63-71\. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1352-7.
* A review of learning and memory in the worm.  
Ardiel EL, Rankin CH (2010). An elegant mind: learning and memory in C. elegans. Learn Mem 17:191-201\. doi:10.1101/lm.960510.

In the trees

[OpenWorm · Simulations](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/trees/simulations?n=min-openworm)[A worm’s whole wiring · Becoming synthetic](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/trees/synthetic?n=celegans-connectome-1986)

Assess it against the published criteria