Science & Technology

The Fantastically Weird World of Photosynthetic Sea Slugs | Michael Middlebrooks | TED

Meet the fantastically colorful and astonishingly adaptable sea slugs that found a way to photosynthesize (or create energy from sunlight) like plants. Diving deep into these often overlooked creatures, invertebrate zoologist Michael Middlebrooks introduces the solar-powered slugs that lost their shells — but gained the ability to directly harness the power of the sun. If…

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Meet the fantastically colorful and astonishingly adaptable sea slugs that found a way to photosynthesize (or create energy from sunlight) like plants. Diving deep into these often overlooked creatures, invertebrate zoologist Michael Middlebrooks introduces the solar-powered slugs that lost their shells — but gained the ability to directly harness the power of the sun.

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43 Comments

  1. Thato Mofolo

    March 9, 2023 at 10:59 am

    ✌️✌️

  2. saurabh naniwadekar

    March 9, 2023 at 11:02 am

    Mindblowing animals, thank you for your research 🙌

  3. RV Sir

    March 9, 2023 at 11:03 am

    Great

    from Bharat

  4. Nidup Jamtsho

    March 9, 2023 at 11:10 am

    Amazing!!!

  5. djayjp

    March 9, 2023 at 11:17 am

    Believe it or not: research indicates that even humans photosynthesize following ingestion of chlorophyll by eating greens as the body is partly transparent to light, but the energy produced is negligible.

  6. Ava Meza

    March 9, 2023 at 11:17 am

    this is incredible, new creature to look into! I always knew slugs were amazing creatures

  7. Norma Lish

    March 9, 2023 at 11:22 am

    NERD! I love you. Never change.

  8. MSWC Productions

    March 9, 2023 at 11:53 am

    My pet duck chase me in kitchen fast!!!

  9. vasanth r

    March 9, 2023 at 12:03 pm

    Absolutely fascinating!

  10. Lars Larsen

    March 9, 2023 at 12:09 pm

    There is no evidence they’re photosynthetic. This guy is just lying to you for clout.

    • emmanuel boakye

      March 9, 2023 at 1:27 pm

      chloroplast = photosynthasis?

  11. TT Endjinn

    March 9, 2023 at 12:57 pm

    Fascinating and a great presentation. Always gives me a buzz seeing someone who is so obviously excited by their field.

  12. SwedenTomasSmile

    March 9, 2023 at 1:00 pm

    Interesting!

  13. Nesib Memmedrzayev

    March 9, 2023 at 1:11 pm

    I like this video

  14. onjoFilms

    March 9, 2023 at 1:17 pm

    Maybe they’re blue, because that is the majority of light that reaches them.

  15. emmanuel boakye

    March 9, 2023 at 1:23 pm

    I guess thier easy to study cause thier slow

  16. Rhett Steed

    March 9, 2023 at 1:28 pm

    that is So cool

  17. Максим Янсон

    March 9, 2023 at 2:58 pm

    Thanks for this video. Nice to know about such amazing animals. I hope in the future we can realize how they do it.

  18. Ligia Sommers

    March 9, 2023 at 3:02 pm

    👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🎉✨🙏🏻

  19. lee morrison

    March 9, 2023 at 4:12 pm

    That means we can take the good parts of something, add it to our biological selfs to cure illnesses or protect from illnesses. Amazing, the elite will live forever one day. Using the words thieves is a bit strong, there adapting, surviving there surroundings, no wonder we got out of there 😂❤

  20. Happy Home

    March 9, 2023 at 4:26 pm

    Odd question: is the human skin transparent enough such that green people could photosynthesize ? Fascinating topic.

  21. Matthijs Meester

    March 9, 2023 at 4:41 pm

    So interesting

  22. HenryManson

    March 9, 2023 at 5:44 pm

    Fascinating!
    And the Fact that they figured out how to make Chlorophyll is astonishing!

  23. yixuan_yx

    March 9, 2023 at 8:58 pm

    Interesting!

  24. Travis Ross

    March 9, 2023 at 11:04 pm

    Go you slug guy!

  25. Patrick McPheron

    March 9, 2023 at 11:26 pm

    I need a part 2 and part 3 and 4 ASAP!

  26. Luciana Munhoz

    March 10, 2023 at 1:39 am

    Really amazing !

  27. AI Joe: Artificial Intelligence for everyone.

    March 10, 2023 at 3:36 am

    I did not know that was possible. A new twist on life’s adaptability.

  28. Alice Walker

    March 10, 2023 at 9:35 am

    I had no idea that there were any animals that could photosynthesise. This is a very cool topic!

  29. SebEyes

    March 10, 2023 at 9:37 am

    Very interesting ! I won’t see Sea slugs the same now…

  30. Michelle Veronica

    March 10, 2023 at 10:12 am

    I’m always fascinated with marine invertebrates but didn’t even think why some have blue color when it’s so rare for land vertibrates.

  31. Cera Robert

    March 10, 2023 at 11:52 am

    Wonderful explanation.

  32. Ty Gibson

    March 10, 2023 at 5:21 pm

    That Emerald Sea Slug

  33. Kamlesh Gasva

    March 10, 2023 at 9:47 pm

    Now I also want to photosynthesize 🥺

  34. Miriam Rosemary

    March 11, 2023 at 4:14 am

    This was awesome!!! I’ve always liked watching garden snails and slugs, but this is on a whole other level. Absolutely gorgeous, and it really blurs the line between what separates plants from animals. Fascinating.

  35. Leila Luginbill

    March 11, 2023 at 11:06 am

    Has anyone tried injecting chloroplasts into a vertebrate animal cell? Inquiring minds need to know…I could increase my sun time and reduce the need for ingesting food.🤗

  36. Invox

    March 11, 2023 at 7:16 pm

    A Ted with more questions than answers… Loved it.

  37. Sager Binsal

    March 12, 2023 at 6:57 am

    7:39 Slugterra 🔫

  38. Agui Moroni

    March 12, 2023 at 6:28 pm

    The best tedTalk I have heard so far. Very interesting!!

  39. Eytan Voss

    March 13, 2023 at 10:19 am

    Thank you, such an interesting angle! Does anybody know of any biomimicry application for human or general to capture CO2?

  40. Superkoopatrooper

    March 13, 2023 at 9:22 pm

    I thought aphids were the only animals capable of photosynthesis, this is really cool.

  41. Guff

    March 14, 2023 at 2:28 am

    “You are what you eat” 🐌

  42. Avi Richar

    March 14, 2023 at 12:37 pm

    i mean while the scifi implications are perhaps sciency fantasy more than anything with the rigorous potential to be questioned into actual problem-solvable reality, this does raise the interesting possibility for a really practical reason behind the idea that any ETs might most often be in the category of “little green men” …if you can cut out most (to all) of the food chain entirely and go straight to living off of starlight, space travel itself becomes an entirely different animal

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