Kleptoplast

A cellular part such as a light-harvesting chloroplast that an organism takes from algae it has eaten. Some sea slugs hold on to these stolen chloroplasts for months. Scientists thought the slugs might get extra food from the photosynthetic organelles (SN: 2/13/10, p. 10).

But now it appears that two of the four species known to steal chloroplasts don’t use them. The slugs lack genes needed to help chloroplasts function, and without food they starve at the same rate in the light as in the dark, where the chloroplasts can’t work, researchers report November 20 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.