Imagine losing an eye, an arm or even your spinal cord. When we are wounded, our bodies, and those of other mammals, generally respond by sealing the wound with scar tissue. The newt, however, has evolved unique strategies that allow it to repeatedly regenerate lost tissues, even as an adult.
Newts are the masters of regeneration. No other animal can match their regenerative abilities in body parts including the limbs, the tail and spinal cord, parts of the eye (such as the retina and the lens), the brain, the heart and the jaws. What happens when a newt loses, for example, a leg? A mass of cells, called a blastema, is generated at the stump, from which a new, fully functional leg is eventually regenerated.