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Name : Mangrove folio bullet ( Elysia bangtawaensis )
Where it lives : Shallow pool of piddle in the Rhizophora mangle forest and swamps of southeast Asia and Australia
What it eats : The subject matter of lilliputian algal cells
Why it ’s awing : In addition to looking like a starry nighttime sky , this mythological lick belong to the sacoglossans , also do it as the " solar - powered ocean slugs " — the only known group of creature that can photosynthesize by keep on chloroplast from alga .
Mangrove leaf slugs have seven to nine penetrative teeth , which they use to deflate algal cells to then lactate out the good stuff at heart . That include chloroplasts , the cellular structures plants use to transmute sunlight into shekels duringphotosynthesis . Mangrove leaf slugs , which grow up to 2 inches ( 5 centimeters ) long , use the chloroplasts they ingest to power themselves , enable them tosurvive without food for two to three month .
colligate : This ocean slug can chop off its head and maturate an entire new body , twice
As well as create energy , chloroplasts shade these biff a dark , leafy - green colouration . This helps mangrove leaf slugs blend into their surroundings and go unnoticed by potential marauder , such as crustacean and birds , as they footle in shaded pools amid the mangrove tree .
— Barreleye Pisces : The inscrutable - sea weirdo with spread out center and a see - through head
— look on muck - covered phallus mushroom that smells like waste physical body grow and decompose in mesmerizing time - oversight
— Pacific lamprey : The jawless fish that outlive 4 raft extinctions and sucks prey juiceless of blood and dead body fluids
After a few months , however , the chloroplasts start to shrink and the slugs grow a xanthous color , at which level they have to replenish their photosynthetic machinery with another repast of algae . Once they have feed in , the hunger slugs regain their leafy - unripe color .
And if their photosynthetic power were n’t weird enough , mangrove leaf punch are simultaneous hermaphrodites , meaning each slug has the intimate organ of both sexes . To procreate , two slugs hug close and introduce their phallus into each other ’s vagina at the same time . After sex activity , the bullet sometimes mold a ball as they withdraw their penises . They then lay ball string up to 28 column inch ( 71 curium ) long and coil them around strong features on the swampy substratum . The eggs hatching within a week , relinquish a fresh batch of tiny mangrove folio slug larvae .
mental image courtesy ofNick Volpe Wildlife Photography .
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