Entities › Animals and other organisms › No neurons

Slime mould

Physarum polycephalum

A single giant cell with no neurons. It solves mazes and grows efficient transport networks.

Neurons

0 measured · no neurons (single giant multinucleate cell)

Evidence

• An amoeboid plasmodium found the shortest path through a maze.
  Nakagaki T, Yamada H, Toth A (2000) Maze-solving by an amoeboid organism. Nature 407(6803):470. doi:10.1038/35035159.
• Its network of tubes organises itself. Its cost, efficiency and fault tolerance are comparable to the Tokyo rail network.
  Tero A, Takagi S, Saigusa T, Ito K, Bebber DP, Fricker MD, Yumiki K, Kobayashi R, Nakagaki T (2010) Rules for biologically inspired adaptive network design. Science 327(5964):439-442. doi:10.1126/science.1177894.

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