Starfish by the starfish in an escape response. The loss of parts of the body is achieved by the rapid softening of a special type of connective tissue in response to nervous signals. This type of tissue is called catch connective tissue and is found in most echinoderms. An autotomy-promoting factor has been identified which, when injected into another starfish, causes rapid shedding of arms. The lifespan of a starfish varies considerably between species, generally being longer in larger forms and in those with planktonic larvae. For example, "Leptasterias hexactis" broods a small number of large-yolked eggs. It has an adult
Ferreira's spiny tree-rat in 1817, Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest described the species based on this specimen housed in the National Museum of Natural History (France) of Paris. Using ancient DNA technology, a portion of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene has been sequenced from a small skin fragment of this holotype. DNA sequence comparisons then suggested that the specimen was originally obtained in eastern Amazonia north of the Amazon River, most likely in the Brazilian state of Amapá. Ferreira's spiny tree-rat Ferreira's spiny tree-rat, "Mesomys hispidus", is a spiny rat species from South America. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana,