Loading a car with hunting gear and supplies, Sánchez Alvarado Lab Postdoctoral Researcher Anand Sasidharan, Ph.D., and Research Technician Daniel Zamora embark well before dawn for Shawnee National Forest in Wolf Lake, Illinois, to hunt for unusual creatures.

This was no ordinary hunt. While freshwater planarian flatworms are generally renowned for their ability to regenerate, the duo was hunting for planarians lacking this feature following previous research reporting such worms in that precise location of the forest.

Why a planarian hunt? “We want to understand why some planarian species are unable to regenerate, especially since many animals like humans are similarly lacking,” Sasidharan said. “For any complex question, we always need to go back to nature and ask, can we find the right organism that may provide an answer?”