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:
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cut off ... their *heads*!? 🤯
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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!
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@mina@berlin.social Didn't know I could be more in love with them, but here we are
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@mina@berlin.social Didn't know I could be more in love with them, but here we are
I thought the absolute same!
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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!
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@mina amazing!
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@mina amazing!
It absolutely blew my mind.
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M mindtunes@troet.cafe shared this topic
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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
@mina And the badass award goes to Costasiella kuroshimae!
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@mina And the badass award goes to Costasiella kuroshimae!
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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
@mina@berlin.social
This is the product of evolution, it developed from something less elaborate. How could it turn out THAT cute? How can cuteness be an evolutionary advantage?
Yes, life finds a way
Maybe i'll declare this as my new #god -
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@mina@berlin.social
This is the product of evolution, it developed from something less elaborate. How could it turn out THAT cute? How can cuteness be an evolutionary advantage?
Yes, life finds a way
Maybe i'll declare this as my new #godLet's found a cult!
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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.
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source and additional info:
@mina
I assume their head is small enough for the cells to get enough food and oxygen by diffusion without any kind of circulatory system but it's still astonishing. -
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
Sometime in the last decade or two. Snails became able to eat sunlight, because at the cellular level, genetic abilities were transferred. From a plant, into an animal.
Imagine still trusting gene splicing experiments like Monsanto does with automatic kill genes being added, to food crops, so third generation seeds are sterile.
Because they think genes only pass through sex. And they dont.
So Monsanto's expirements most correctly read as sci-fi novels about how the starvation began.
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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:
@mina half animal, half plant. Amazing!
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@mina
I assume their head is small enough for the cells to get enough food and oxygen by diffusion without any kind of circulatory system but it's still astonishing. -
Sometime in the last decade or two. Snails became able to eat sunlight, because at the cellular level, genetic abilities were transferred. From a plant, into an animal.
Imagine still trusting gene splicing experiments like Monsanto does with automatic kill genes being added, to food crops, so third generation seeds are sterile.
Because they think genes only pass through sex. And they dont.
So Monsanto's expirements most correctly read as sci-fi novels about how the starvation began.
That's actually enormously scary.
I will have to find some more information about that. Do you have an article about that?
I mean, one you can understand without being a biologist?
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@mina half animal, half plant. Amazing!
Nature and its ways are truly a marvel.
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That's actually enormously scary.
I will have to find some more information about that. Do you have an article about that?
I mean, one you can understand without being a biologist?
