Have you ever wondered why we need to eat food like salad to fuel our bodies, but we never see plants eat? That’s because plants have a special ability to use sunlight to make food inside them using their green leaves!
But did you know there’s an animal that can also make food with light? It’s a special kind of slug called the emerald elysia! This slug can go a whole year without eating anything because it can make its own food using sunlight, just like plants do.
Most slugs are small, squishy animals you might see on the ground or on plants. However, the emerald elysia lives in the ocean. Even though ocean water is salty, which land slugs don’t like, sea slugs have adapted to live in the ocean for a long time.
So, how do these slugs get their superpower? They eat something called algae, which are like the cousins of land plants but live in water. Algae can be big or super tiny, and they can turn water green when there’s a lot of them together.
Algae, like plants, use sunlight to make their own food with the help of tiny compartments inside them called chloroplasts. These chloroplasts are like little sun-powered machines that make food, and they are green, which is why leaves and algae are green.
When sea slugs eat algae, they also eat their chloroplasts. The slugs can then use these chloroplasts to turn light into food! This means after eating algae when they’re young, they gain the ability to make their own food using sunlight for up to a year.
It would be amazing if we could become sun-powered by eating salads, but unfortunately, we can’t. When we eat foods with chloroplasts, like spinach, our stomachs break them down. But emerald elysia slugs can keep these chloroplasts working inside them.
Even though these slugs can make their own food, they sometimes have a little algae snack to get more chloroplasts. Isn’t that amazing? Now, let’s go pick some tomatoes for our salad. It won’t feed us for a year, but it will help with our hunger!
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Sunlight Experiment: Try growing a small plant at home, like a bean sprout or a sunflower seed. Place it in a sunny spot and water it regularly. Observe how the plant uses sunlight to grow. Draw a picture of your plant every few days to see how it changes. Discuss with your family how the plant is making its own food using sunlight, just like the emerald elysia slug.
Slug and Algae Craft: Create a craft project to understand the relationship between the emerald elysia slug and algae. Use green paper or felt to make algae and a slug. You can use a paper plate as the ocean. Arrange the algae and slug on the plate and explain to someone how the slug uses algae to get chloroplasts and make its own food.
Imagine and Draw: Imagine if you could make your own food using sunlight like the emerald elysia slug. Draw a picture of yourself with special powers to use sunlight for food. What would you look like? What would you do with your new ability? Share your drawing with a friend or family member and explain your idea.
