Kleptoplasty

[2][3] Kleptoplasty has been acquired in various independent clades of eukaryotes, namely single-celled protists of the SAR supergroup and the Euglenozoa phylum, and some marine invertebrate animals.

Foraminifera Dinoflagellata Ciliata Rapazida Rhabdocoela Sacoglossa Nudibranchia Some species of the foraminiferan genera Bulimina, Elphidium, Haynesina, Nonion, Nonionella, Nonionellina, Reophax, and Stainforthia sequester diatom chloroplasts.

[1] In other dinoflagellates, kleptoplasty has been hypothesized to represent either a mechanism permitting functional flexibility, or perhaps an early evolutionary stage in the permanent acquisition of chloroplasts.

[7] M. rubrum participates in additional endosymbiosis by transferring its plastids to its predators, the dinoflagellate planktons belonging to the genus Dinophysis.

In B. solaris the extracted plastids, or kleptoplasts, continue to exhibit functional photosynthesis for a short period of roughly 7 days.

[13] Several species of Sacoglossan sea slugs capture intact, functional chloroplasts from algal food sources, retaining them within specialized cells lining the mollusc's digestive diverticula.

[16] Due to this unusual ability, the sacoglossans are sometimes referred to as "solar-powered sea slugs", though the actual benefit from photosynthesis on the survival of some of the species that have been analyzed seems to be marginal at best.

[19] Some species of another group of sea slugs, nudibranchs such as Pteraeolidia ianthina, sequester whole living symbiotic zooxanthellae within their digestive diverticula, and thus are similarly "solar-powered".