Feeding

Description:

Coleps is one of nature's little scavengers. It will attach dead and decaying metazoa, eating residual pieces of tissue on cast off exoskeletons or attaching organisms that are wounded. It will also eat detrital material. This species retains chloroplasts from algal food - a phenomenon referred to as kleptoplasty. Chloroplasts are derived from blue-green algae that have survived symbiotically within other cells, and kleptoplasty exploits aspects of the autonomy of these organelles. Phase contrast microscopy.