Many of you might have already seen the ultra cute "sea sheep" (Costasiella kuroshimae), but yesterday I learned 2 mind-blowing facts about the family of sea slugs they belong to:

[mina@berlin.social]

Many of you might have already seen the ultra cute "sea sheep" (Costasiella kuroshimae), but yesterday I learned 2 mind-blowing facts about the family of sea slugs they belong to:

1. They incorporate chloroplasts (the organelles in plant cells that do the actual photosynthesis) of plants they eat, into their own bodies to do photosynthesis directly for them (that is the green colour you see), in order to survive if food is scarce.

Imagine being able to live from light!

1/2

#WondersOfNature

[mina@berlin.social]

2. This allows some of these slugs to do a trick, no other animal can do.

If they get sick or damaged, they're able to cut off their heads, leaving the body with heart and digestive system behind and to regrow a whole body within a couple of days.

Whilst they do it, they live from photosynthesis alone (no digestive system), but how they manage to do so without a heart, is still unknown.

2/2

source and additional info:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH_uv4h2xYM

[quincy@chaos.social]

@mina

cut off ... their *heads*!? 🤯

[mina@berlin.social]

@quincy

Yes. The question is how you see:

Cut off heads or bodies?

The body dies after decapitation, the head doesn't.

This is insane: A limb or a tail is one thing, the head is a whole new level.

[reynir@social.data.coop]

@mina @quincy oh I thought they regrew their head and not the other way