The photosynthetic snail

Photosynthesis, the process by which the leaves are turning C02 procure energy and water into glucose, but requires solar energy in the seabed there is a " strange creature " that is a wonderful fusion between the animal and plant world. It is a sea snail, a mollusk in all respects but with the appearance of a green leaf, which has the ability to carry out chlorophyll synthesis. The slug Elysia chlorotica belongs to the order of molluscs sacoglossi, also called "sea slugs sucking sap" as they feed by sucking fluids from the cells of the algae interiors where you will also find the chloroplasts. Chloroplasts , found in plants and certain algae, are "organelles" inside which performs photosynthesis.
Summarizing, Elysia feeds on algae in their bodies by introducing the precious chloroplasts that are embedded in special cells found in his digestive tract. In this way it is able, like plants, to perform the function of chlorophyll.
Photosynthesis allows the snail to survive a long time, about a year, even if the food is not available. In addition, the green color typical of these snails allows them to stay in the shallow waters, where they absorb more sunlight and are camouflaged with vegetation, escaping from predators.
It is interesting to observe how this process of integration of chloroplasts in their cells without assimilating them is probably similar to what happened billions of years ago when our ancestors unicellular englobed mitochondria and, with them, the valuable function of cellular respiration, without which would never existed all the heterotrophs that from these symbionts evolved, humans included.

The Elysia chlorotica lives along the coasts of the United States (Connecticut , Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Florida and Texas), but can also be found farther north in Canada.