© Jupiterimages Corp. Matching Draw a line to match each word on the right with the group of words on the left that relate to it. © Learning A–Z.com presented by Science a-z a division of Learning A-Z creature, pet, plant critter, wild Solar-Powered Sea Slugs hot, bright, animal By Ron Fridell ray, daytime One animal is unlike any supply. It’s part plant and deadly, hunt, sea other known animal on part animal. You could call it enemy, prey Earth. It’s a species of sea a planimal! slug called Elysia chlorotica. eat, energy, sunlight This creature lives in ocean This creature looks like a diet, hungry waters along the eastern green leaf swimming in United States. What makes the sea. Its favorite meal is stem, leaf, swim it so special? Like an animal, green sea plants called algae. green, flower it eats food. But like a plant, Sounds yummy, right? But E. it also makes its own food chlorotica only needs to eat wave, salt, predator one meal of algae at fish, algae the very beginning of its life. So how does float, dive, defend it get the energy it water, wade needs to survive after protect, guard, food it stops eating? help, watch © iStockphoto.com/ Rebecca Lowe © Nick Curtis and Ray Martinez Elysia chlorotica © Jupiterimages Corp. See Solar Sea Slugs on page 2 © Learning A–Z All rights reserved. 4 www.sciencea-z.com 1 Solar Sea Slugs Continued from page 1 Write About This! What would it be like if you could make your own food inside © iStockphoto.com/Leo Blanchette your body instead of eating? Don’t bother How would your life be different? © iStockphoto.com/Zurijeta looking for What would be the pros and planimal in cons? Use your answers to help a dictionary. It’s not an official word . you write a story, essay, or poem yet. But scientists think about your new life as a planimal. they will find more animal species that behave like © 2008 Proceedings of the National © 2008 Proceedings Academy of Sciences Publication plants in some ways. E. chlorotica takes in some If they do, then maybe pointy protection of the algae’s genes while someday you will find planimal in a dictionary. it eats. Genes are the parts Sea slugs don’t have shells, and their bodies are soft. of cells that tell the body So how do they defend themselves? Many sea slugs have how to make what it needs. color patterns to blend in with their habitat. Some sea slugs This sea slug takes in the also have poisonous stingers. Ouch! They’re not born with genes that tell algae how Some plants them, though. These sea slugs eat creatures that have stingers, to perform a process called look like such as stinging jellyfish and anemones. But they don’t digest animals, and some photosynthesis. This process the stingers. The stingers stick out © Jupiterimages Corp. is how plants, algae, and animals resemble plants. through the sea slugs’ skin. These Are these organisms sharp features help the sea slugs other living things make food plants or animals? from sunlight. © iStockphoto.com/Cathy Keifer/Keiichi Hiki protect themselves from predators. After just one meal, this sea slug can use sunlight to make its own food. It never Inc. Researchers, Photo has to eat again! With the © Eye of Science/ algae’s genes in its cells, A slug’s mouth is just a tiny hole. E. chlorotica could be called When the slug opens it up, rows of teeth scrape food into tiny bits. a “solar-powered” animal. animals! both They’re © Learning A–Z All rights reserved. 2 3 www.sciencea-z.com.