Elysia chlorotica

Taxobox
name = "Elysia chlorotica"
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Mollusca
classis = Gastropoda
subclassis = Orthogastropoda
superordo = Heterobranchia
ordo = Opisthobranchia
subordo = Sacoglossa
familia = Elysiidae
genus = "Elysia"
species = "E. chlorotica"
binomial = "Elysia chlorotica"
binomial_authority = Gould, 1870

"Elysia chlorotica" is a small-to-medium-sized species of green sea slug, a marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusk.

This sea slug resembles a nudibranch, but does not belong to that suborder of gastropods. It is instead a member of the closely related suborder sacoglossa.

Description

This species is usually a strong green in color. The parapodial edges are frilly like lettuce, but not as frilly as they are in Elysia crispata.

Life Habits

This littoral sea slug lives in a subcellular endosymbiotic relationship with chloroplasts of the marine heterokont alga "Vaucheria litorea". These borrowed chloroplasts provide their host with the products of photosynthesis. Although the chloroplasts survive for the whole lifespan of the mollusc (about 10 months), they are not transferred to their young. [cite journal
author =Brian J. Green, Wei-Ye Li, James R. Manhart, Theodore C. Fox, Elizabeth J. Summer, Robert A. Kennedy, Sidney K. Pierce, and Mary E. Rumpho
title = Mollusc-Algal Chloroplast Endosymbiosis. Photosynthesis, Thylakoid Protein Maintenance, and Chloroplast Gene Expression Continue for Many Months in the Absence of the Algal Nucleus
journal =Plant Physiology
volume =124
pages =331–342
date = September 2000
url = http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/content/full/124/1/331
accessdate = 2006-12-14
doi = 10.1104/pp.124.1.331]

References

* [http://seaslugforum.net/factsheet.cfm?base=elyschlo]

ee also

* "Elysia viridis"