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A jellyfish smaller than a fingernail has earned the nickname "immortal" for a trick no other known animal can pull off.

What can Turritopsis dohrnii, the so-called immortal jellyfish, do when injured or stressed?

Revert its cells back to an earlier, juvenile stage and start its life cycle over
When stressed, injured, or aging, Turritopsis dohrnii can transform its mature cells back into an earlier polyp stage through a process called transdifferentiation, essentially resetting its biological clock. This doesn't make individual jellyfish immortal in practice, since they still die from predation or disease, but it makes indefinite life cycles theoretically possible.

Turritopsis dohrnii, the so-called immortal jellyfish, can revert its cells back to an earlier, juvenile stage and start its life cycle over when injured or stressed, through a process called transdifferentiation. This essentially resets its biological clock, turning a mature jellyfish back into a young polyp that can grow up all over again.

It doesn't regrow into two separate jellyfish, and it doesn't freeze itself and revive decades later; those are different survival tricks used by other organisms entirely. This jellyfish's trick is specifically about cellular transformation, not splitting or suspended animation.

This ability doesn't make individual jellyfish immortal in any practical sense, since they can still be eaten by predators or killed by disease, but it does make an indefinitely repeating life cycle theoretically possible, which is a genuinely rare feat in the animal kingdom.

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