Mesodinium chamaeleon

Mesodinium chamaeleon is an unusual organism of the genus Mesodinium which combines aspects of both animal and plant biology. It has the ability to eat plants, and afterwards using the chlorophyll granules from the plants to generate energy, turning itself from being a heterotroph into an autotroph. It was discovered in January 2012 outside the coast of Nivå, Denmark by professor Øjvind Moestrup.

In contrast to certain other species of the genus, Mesodinium chamaeleon n. sp. can be maintained in culture for short periods only. It captures and ingests flagellates including cryptomonads. The prey is ingested very rapidly into a food vacuole without the cryptomonad flagella being shed and the trichocysts being discharged. The individual food vacuoles subsequently serve as photosynthetic units, each containing the cryptomonad chloroplast, a nucleus, and some mitochondria. The ingested cells are eventually digested. This type of symbiosis differs from other plastid-bearing Mesodinium spp. in retaining ingested cryptomonad cells almost intact. The food strategy of the new species appears to be intermediate between heterotrophic species, such as Mesodinium pulex and Mesodinium pupula, and species with red cryptomonad endosymbionts, such as Mesodinium rubrum.