Here’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/
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)