Imagine one peaceful morning, the largest sunflower in your lawn suddenly sprouts two feet and sprints in the direction of the sun. This is, according to taxonomy is impossible, as plants certainly have no need to run around and catch prey due to their ability to photosynthesize. Animals, on the other hand have to run, climb, and chase to get their food. At least that’s what we thought.
Recently, some marine sea slugs decided not to care about these rules and developed the ability to use the sun’s rays to feed themselves. By ingesting chloroplasts, the molecular structures in plants used to harvest solar energy, the slugs can are able to meet all of their nutritional needs without going around an eating other plants and animals. Despite the fact that they look like green leaves, thanks to the chloroplasts, there is still a huge debate on whether these slugs are animals or plants. Personally, these slugs are more animal-like than plant-like because of their slug ancestors. However, this also blurs the distinctions between animals and plants due to their unique feeding abilities.
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