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An autotrophic animal

25 Sep

ImageHere’s the article that I stumbled upon today. It describes an animal (a sea slug) that ‘steals’ chloroplasts from the algae it eats and retains them in a functional way such that they can provide nourishment to the animal for many months.

This is not a true photosynthesizing animal – meaning that it can only temporarily harbor chloroplasts from its food, but it is still an amazing oddity.

http://www.independent.com/news/2010/jan/30/first-known-photosynthetic-animal/

 
2 Comments

Posted by on September 25, 2012 in Uncategorized

 

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2 responses to “An autotrophic animal

  1. kavesha raina

    March 18, 2015 at 10:38 am

    does it have a name? please reply its for my class project

     
    • downhousesoftware

      March 22, 2015 at 8:53 am

      I’m sorry I did not get to answering this before. It’s a Elysia chlorotica sea slug. They are not true autotrophs in that they produce their own chloroplasts – however, they do get around the system by stealing chloroplasts from other organisms.
      Good luck with your report (that is, if it’s not finished already)

       

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