Shoggoth Alert! Half-Vegetable Slug?

This not only brings up an image of shoggoths, but also Campbell's Antarctic novel whose monster was most famously portrayed by James Arness - another vegetable alien. Life is strange enough here; what will we find "out there"?

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.

"They can make their energy-containing molecules without having to eat anything," said Sidney Pierce, a biologist at the University of South Florida in Tampa.