The Animal That Never Eats Again
The impossible claim This sea slug eats algae exactly once — then steals the machines plants use for photosynthesis and runs on sunlight for ten months. The verified facts The eastern emerald elysia (Elysia chlorotica) is a sea slug that does something no animal should be able to do: photosynthesize. It eats the algae Vaucheria litorea exactly once in its life, but instead of digesting the algae completely, it keeps the chloroplasts alive inside its own cells — a trick scientists call kleptoplasty (“plastic theft”). ...