In the shallow marine waters off of the coasts of Japan, Philippines, you can find these adorable little creatures floating about in their magical underworld. They are Leaf Sheep.They are one of the ...

Life has certain rules and patterns. Plants, with their incredible ability to harness the sun’s energy, don’t go roaming around. They don’t need to. But animals, lacking the wondrous power of ...

The ability of sacoglossan sea slugs to sequester and maintain functional algal chloroplasts – a process known as kleptoplasty – has long fascinated researchers. This phenomenon enables the slugs to ...

Why it's awesome: These tiny marine creatures are probably better known by their nickname, "Shaun the Sheep" sea slugs, because of their uncanny resemblance to the iconic TV character. The adorable ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Some sea slugs can live without their bodies. Cut their heads off ...

Some sea slugs take up chloroplasts from the algae that they consume into their cells. These chloroplasts retain their ability to perform photosynthetic activity within the animal cells for several ...

Kleptoplasty. It sounds cool. It is cool. Acquired phototrophy is a process where organisms - usually aquatic protists or metazoans - acquire and retain photosynthetic endosymbionts or their ...

You’ve probably heard the old adage: “You are what you eat.” Several species of sacoglossan sea slugs have taken that literally.Purdue’s Josh Widhalm (@WidhalmLab), an assistant professor of ...

Part animal, part plant, bright green, and totally bizarre: Meet the sea slug Elysia chlorotica. Biologists already knew that this organism, native to the marshes of New England and Canada, was a ...

A photosynthetic sea slug has developed a unique evolutionary mechanism to help it get ahead in life, so to speak. Sacoglossan slugs have the ability to quite literally decapitate their own heads from ...

Plants, algae and some bacteria are able to perform photosynthesis, which is the process of transforming sunlight energy into sugar. Animals are generally unable to use this process to acquire energy, ...