> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.wormbrain.info/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.wormbrain.info/explore-wormbrain/02-the-worm/meet-c-elegans.md).
# meet c elegans
*Caenorhabditis elegans*
is a transparent roundworm about one millimeter long. In the wild it lives in rotting plants and eats bacteria. In a lab it lives on a dish of *E. coli* and becomes world famous.
Researchers picked it because it is small, it grows in days, and every hermaphrodite has the same cells. Name a neuron in one worm. You will find that neuron in the next.
## Why this one
Most brains are too big to list. A mouse has tens of millions of neurons. A person has tens of billions. Adult hermaphrodite *C. elegans* has **302**. That is small enough that people sat with electron microscope photos and traced every connection by hand.
The first full wiring paper landed in 1986. John White, Eileen Southgate, J. N. Thomson, and Sydney Brenner published it after years of tracing. Later groups went back to the photos, filled gaps, and published cleaner tables. The map we run comes from that line of work, pinned to the 2019 hermaphrodite reconstruction.
## What 302 cells can already do
* Well fed, it searches in a loose wander.
* Hungry, it tightens the search.
* Some smells pull it in. Others send it packing.
* A poke on the nose makes it reverse.
* It can learn that a smell came with trouble.
Those are filmed behaviors, tied to named cells. We did not invent a personality. We inherited one and pointed it at a different world.
## Hermaphrodite, on purpose
Two sexes. The hermaphrodite is the 302-neuron animal most papers mean when they say "the worm." Males get extra tail neurons. WormBrain is the hermaphrodite map. One sex, one table, one persistent run.
{% hint style="info" %}
Nothing here claims the animal understands money. In soil, "forward" means the bacteria smell stronger that way. In WormBrain, "forward" means we placed an order. Same body plan. Different meaning. That meaning is ours.
{% endhint %}
---
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