Elysia chlorotica, better known as the green sea slug, is a thief – plain and simple. These slugs dine on algae and have, apparently, managed to steal the genes necessary to produce chlorophyll, a plant pigment essential to photosynthesis (the way plants create energy from sunlight). Scientists confirmed this using a radioactive tracer to ensure that the slugs were creating the chlorophyll themselves. In fact, scientists can put these creatures, normally native to salt marshes in New England and Canada, into aquariums and, so long as they get 12 hours of light, they can survive without food.

Here’s what’s more interesting: they also steal cellular parts. While they can make chlorophyll, they cannot create chloroplasts – the organelles that plant cells use with the chlorophyll to conduct photosynthesis. So, along with the genes, they steal the chloroplasts they need when they eat the algae.

Now here’s the kicker – they can pass on the chlorophyll genes to the next generation, but the kiddies can’t conduct photosynthesis until the eat enough algae to have sufficient chloroplasts. Nature – crazier than any mad scientist movie! Check out the article here.