What the Scientists Decided--Green Sea Slug

Elysia chlorotica
Conservation status
Not evaluated (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Gastropoda
(unranked):	clade Heterobranchia informal group Opisthobranchia clade Sacoglossa subclade Placobranchacea
Superfamily:	Placobranchoidea
Family:	Placobranchidae
Genus:	Elysia
Species:	E. chlorotica
Binomial name
Elysia chlorotica Gould, 1870 Scientists classified the Green Sea Slug as shown above. For more information and a short film of the slug eating...check out the following link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16124-solarpowered-sea-slug-harnesses-stolen-plant-genes-.html

Green Sea Slug

It's really interesting that an animal can steal genes from a plant and keep them for the duration of its entire life. The fact that a slug can manufacture chlorophyll is an amazing step in evolution for these animals. I didn't know that genes could flow across kingdoms. This slug is different from other slugs because it doesn't need other nutrients to keep its new talent working, it can just sunbathe and this is all very new. We would have to make a new way to class these plant animal hybrids because they are the first of their kind. This is fascinating that there can be a hybrid between plant an animal but it does make sense from an evolutionary standpoint that an animal would want to be able to never have to eat and just sunbathe.

green sea slug

I thought that this organism was especially interesting because it could be classified many different ways. It is an invertebrate, it is a plant, it is an animal. It has no backbone and it lives in the sea, it looks like a plant, it produces chlorophyll, but it is really a slug. “This could be a fusion of a plant and an animal — that’s just cool,” said invertebrate zoologist John Zardus of The Citadel in Charleston, S.C.

I thought that these were really interesting because they could be classified so many different ways; it depends on what the most important kingdom to classify something under is.

In my opinion, there should be a classification for things that fall under more than one category. I think that there should be special classification an 7^th group for something that fits into more than one group.

It has adapted its self to produce chlorophyll and blend in with coral and other plants in order for it to be more transparent in its surroundings.