Posted on 01/02/2009 12:39:48 PM PST by decimon
It's the ultimate form of solar power: eat a plant, become photosynthetic. Now researchers have found how one animal does just that.
Elysia chlorotica is a lurid green sea slug, with a gelatinous leaf-shaped body, that lives along the Atlantic seaboard of the US. What sets it apart from most other sea slugs is its ability to run on solar power.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
Awwww...the second one likes me.
Um, coral has photosynthetic zooxanthellae, which it is dependent upon. (No zooxanthellae = “bleaching”)
Also, almost all clams have zooxanthellae in their mantles. So this is nothing really new, and the reporter’s claim of “Now researchers have found one animal that does just that,” as if it had never existed in any animal until now, is false. What IS new is that I believe this is the first nudibranch discovered that has this sort of symbiotic relationship with algae.
This is different. Zooxanthellae are a separate organism from the coral that lives symbiotically with them. This sea slug only takes the chloroplasts from the plant cells and uses them. The tricky bit is that the chloroplasts generally require the rest of the plant cell to be able to survive, but the sea slug has DNA which creates the needed proteins and it appears that it might have incorporated the plant's DNA into its own.
Yes, it is a different process, and I’m sure that is why scientists are interested. But the article was making broad claims as to the uniqueness of an animal using (REQUIRING) algae to live, and I was pointing out that these are false. I know that they are separate organisms, but for all practical purposes, the coral and its zooxanthellae are as one. The coral will die without it. The difference here appears to be that zooxanthellae can survive without coral (but not vice versa), whereas chloroplasts cannot survive without the nudibranch’s production of protein.
chlorotica
We shoot green laser beams, mortal.
Yes, that is a sexy bleached blouse.
Elysia chlorotica is a lurid green sea slug, with a gelatinous leaf-shaped body"Elysia chlorotica" sounds like a magazine (ahem) subscription.
Thanks for the ping. Happy New Year!
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