Autotomy

Autotomy is the behavior by which an animal deliberately sheds or discards one of its own appendages, most often as a way to escape a predator's grasp or to distract a predator and buy time to flee; many species that practice it can later regenerate the lost body part. The behavior is widespread, occurring in vertebrates such as lizards, salamanders, snakes, and even a few mammals like African spiny mice, as well as in more than two hundred invertebrate species spanning molluscs, crustaceans, spiders, bees, and echinoderms, and it is estimated to have evolved independently at least nine separate times. Fossil evidence shows that autotomy already existed in reptiles as far back as the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian periods, long before the term itself was coined by the scientist Leon Fredericq in 1883.