Sea Slug Is Half-plant, Half-animal [IN THE NEWS]

[Rali]

A green sea slug appears to be part animal, part plant. It's the first critter discovered to produce the plant pigment chlorophyll.

The sneaky slugs seem to have stolen the genes that enable this skill from algae that they've eaten. With their contraband genes, the slugs can carry out photosynthesis — the process plants use to convert sunlight into energy.
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In addition to burglarizing the genes needed to make the green pigment chlorophyll, the slugs also steal tiny cell parts called chloroplasts, which they use to conduct photosynthesis. The chloroplasts use the chlorophyl to convert sunlight into energy, just as plants do, eliminating the need to eat food to gain energy.

"We collect them and we keep them in aquaria for months," Pierce said. "As long as we shine a light on them for 12 hours a day, they can survive [without food]."

Full Story: http://www.livescience.com/animals/green-slug-animal-plant-100112.html

Oh the possibilities...

[Anthar]

There is a usefull genetic enhancement. It would be cool to be able to go with only a minimal amount of food as long as you got enough sunlight. I imagine that we would still have to ingest some food just for the vitamins and minerals but still cool.

[glitterboy2098]

There is a usefull genetic enhancement. It would be cool to be able to go with only a minimal amount of food as long as you got enough sunlight. I imagine that we would still have to ingest some food just for the vitamins and minerals but still cool.

actually, i doubt it would provide sufficent nutrition for a large, endothermic creature. slugs are small, and exothermic.
size is a big issue, since as size goes up so does the amount of nutrition needed, but surface area (which giverns how much nutrition you can get from phytosynthesis) goes up much slower. doubleing a creatures size would only increase surface area by about 50% at best, so quite rapidly it would cease to gain benefit from photosynthesis.
and warm blooded creatures require alot more nutrition than the slow metabolism of a slug.

on the otherhand, photosynthetic creatures could gain an endurance bonus or something in ATB, from the extra sugars and oxygen.