Everything out there is either a plant or an animal, right? Wrong! Recently, Sidney Pierce, a biologist from the University of South Tampa in Florida, discovered that sea slugs, though animals, have the ability to carry out photosynthesis. She presented the information on January 7th, 2010 at the most recent meeting of the Society of the Integrative and Comparative Biology. Photosynthesis is the ability to use sunlight to make you own food and energy. To do this, you need chloroplasts. You use the chloroplasts to produce chlorophyll. Until now, scientists believed that only plants have the ability to produce chlorophyll. However, recent studies proved them wrong. How did these animals got their chloroplasts? The sea slugs eat algae. and the algae have chloroplasts. When the slugs consume the algae, they are apparently are able to transfer the DNA from the algae to themselves. Though no one has ever seen anything like this before, it appears to be possible. What about the future generations of sea slugs? Will they be able to produce chlorophyll? Research shows that the slugs that have this mutation in their DNA will be able to pass the gene onto their children. However, these new slugs will not be able to produce chlorophyll until they have stolen enough chloroplasts from the algae they eat.
Who: Sidney Pierce
What: Found that sea slugs are not only animals, but have also obtained genes that also make them plants.
When: The evidence was presented on January 7th
Where: The most recent meeting of the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology. The meeting was held in Seattle.
Why: The slugs were able to transfer DNA from their original food source, algae. The stole chloroplasts from their food, and eventually gathered enough to carry out photosynthesis.
I personally think that this is a very fascinating discovery. This also connects to what we are learning in science class right now. We are talking about animals and their classifications. I believe that it would be fun to try to classify this animal. I am not sure how scientists classify animals, but I think that it would be very hard to place it into a phylum. I also think that if every animal was about to carry out photosynthesis, it would be better for the environment. Though this is a very far fetched idea, maybe one day it will be possible. When I first saw the headline for the article, I thought that it was very unbelievable. I did not know how it was both a plant and an animal. Now that I have read the article, it makes sense. While I was reading this article, I couldn't help but wonder if the slugs really did obtain their chloroplasts from the algae. Isn't there any other way that the slugs could have gotten the chloroplasts? Either way, I think that this was a very fascinating article.
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