How can worms live after being cut in half?
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Some worms have a large population of stem cells that are capable of differentiating into any type of cell in the body. When the worm is cut, these stem cells divide and differentiate to form the various types of tissues needed to regenerate the lost parts.
So basically the cells in a worm’s body are able to divide and multiply, which allows the worm to regenerate.
Also, not all worms are able to regenerate, and even those that can may not always survive being cut in half.
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Two keys. Redundancy and stem cells, if you cut a worm in half and it has enough copies of the key organs on each half, and enough energy stored on the butt half to fast until it develops a new mouth, both can survive and regenerate into a full worm.
Not all species can do this, and the circumstances have to be right for the process to happen. In a lot of cases, attempts to do this will only leave you with two halves of a dead worm, as it is a last ditch attempt and a risky, and energy expensive gamble for a worm to try to save its life like that.
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