highlights
This creature found in the sea behaves like both an animal and a plant.
It eats algae and collects chloroplasts in it in its efforts.
Similarly, by accumulating chloroplasts, it starts preparing food like plants.
Is there any creature that eats animals and can also cook food like plants? Or can an animal start acting like a plant by eating only vegetation? Is it an animal or can it be called a plant? One such creature has been found in the ocean. Scientists have found that although sea slug or snail is an animal, it develops such an ability in a very interesting way that it starts cooking food like plants.
There is chlorophyll inside the body of sea snail or slug. They use it to make their food through sunlight. They use the photosynthesis process just like plants. The interesting thing is that they do not contain chlorophyll as soon as they are born. They obtain chlorophyll by eating a lot of vegetation throughout their lives.
This is why they are called saccoglasan or sap-sucking sea slugs because they actually suck the contents out of the cells. For this they use moss fibers like straw. But they digest food like animals. They separate chloroplasts from the moss and incorporate them into their own cells. After this they only need sunlight.
Sea slugs extract chloroplasts from algae like straws. (Symbolic photo: Wikimedia Commons)
This entire process is called kleptoplasty. And it is because of this strange ability that these sacoglossan creatures are called solar energy sea slugs. But can these animals carry out the process of photosynthesis in this way only by stealing chloroplasts? Scientists knew that this was not possible. That’s why he decided to get to the bottom of it.
The researchers found that Elysia chlorotica not only steals chloroplasts from the algae, but also takes their genes and integrates them into its own DNA. This is a very unique and wonderful example of gene transfer. They are mostly found in salty marshes, ponds etc. of the eastern coasts of America and Canada. These 2 to 3 cm creatures can be up to 6 cm long.
Young Ilysia chlorotica are red or gray in color and once they begin to develop chloroplasts, they turn bright green. With the help of green colour, they are successful in deceiving even the hunter animals. They can survive without eating for a year through photosynthesis.
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Tags: Amazing news, Bizarre news, OMG News, Weird news
FIRST PUBLISHED: January 1, 2024, 15:29 IST
