ABSTRACT
Echinoderms have an amazing ability to regenerate not only the lost tissues, organs and systems but also some of them can agametically clone and reproduce asexually. Agametic clonal reproduction is bidirectional, when the bisected animal develops into two fully functional individuals, as in echinoderms but unidirectional, when only one half regenerates, as in solitary ascidians. Asexual or fissiparous clonal reproduction provides a mechanism for potential rapid amplification of individual genotypes. Species characterized by autotomic cloning or larval cloning do not clonally reproduce by fission; clonal autotomic species do not undergo larval cloning; likewise, larval cloning species do not undergo clonal autotomy. Hence, these three types of clonal reproduction mutually eliminate each other. In echinoderms, fission, clonal autotomy and budding are the methods of asexual reproduction. In holothuroids, fission can be induced by ligating the body at one or more levels with band(s) made up of rubber, bicycle tube and plastic, or by cutting body at desired level by a blade.
