Trivia: The African clawed frog (Xenopus) has become a commonly used lab animal for embryology as, unlike other amphibians, its reproduction isn't locked to annual seasons. So year 'round frog embryos, rather than waiting for Spring.

That said, Michael Levin has done some interesting work on cellular 'intent' and intercellular 'electrical' communication (more like neuronal synapses than electricity on a wire). The original 'xenobots' came out of his lab, and were a way to see what embryonic epithelial cells would do if separated from the rest of the developing embryo. Tuns out, those cells self-organized into something unlike a frog, and unlike the tissue those cells were 'developmentally destined' to become. They self-organized, which can be regarded as cell-level 'intent'.

He's also done some interesting work on limb regeneration (mostly the question: how does a regenerating limb know the shape and length of the limb it's regrowing? How does it know when to stop? In a growing embryo, this kind of thing can be explained by gradients of chemicals (front to back, center-out, l-to-r). In regeneration, not so much.

Some of Levin's presentations have made their way to YouTube. IMO, worth a listen.

More trivia: all our cells have cilia (those little wavy bits) — even the cells that don’t more around and don’t pump fluid (e.g. mucus moved out of the lungs, cerebrospinal fluid circulation). They’re even key to how nerve cells drag axons to the right place to interconnect, and the neuronal remodeling associated with learning.